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Vietnam woman arrested for impersonating ‘US soldier’ to swindle countrywomen

Vietnam woman arrested for impersonating ‘US soldier’ to swindle countrywomen

Saturday, May 27, 2017, 11:11 GMT+7

Police in the southern province of Tien Giang have arrested a woman for impersonating an American soldier stationed in Afghanistan to swindle many Vietnamese women of hefty sums of money.

Tran Thi Bich Tuyen, 35, a resident in Go Cong Tay District, is detained for four months on charges of swindling to appropriate assets, police confirmed on Friday.

Tuyen has confessed to police that she had successfully duped two other women with the same scam to send her VND100 million ($4,405).

The arrest came after one of Tuyen’s latest victim, Dang Thi M., a resident in Ha Long City in the northern Quang Ninh Province, reported her case of being scammed off VND2.2 billion (US$97,000) by a con artist to police.

According to the police file, in April, the 49-year-old Ha Long resident was contacted via Facebook by a man named Patrick Paul, who claimed to be an American military officer working in Afghanistan.

After message exchanges on Facebook, the ‘American soldier’  told M. that he had been given $1.2 million from the U.S. government and wanted to have the money transferred to Vietnam to evade taxes.

The man asked M. if she could help receive the money under her name, adding that he would use the money to marry her.

The married woman responded that she did not want the marriage, but was willing to help receive the money and gave her ‘boyfriend’ all necessary information.

Paul then told her that the gift had arrived in Vietnam and someone would soon contact her on how to claim it.

On May 3, a woman speaking southern accent called M. on the phone, claiming to be an employee of Tan Son Nhat International Airport and asked her to pay multiple fees to claim the gift.

As instructed, M. made five money transfers, totaling VND2.2 billion ($97,000), to an account registered under the name of Ngo Thi Anh Thu and had since lost contact from both Thu and her ‘boyfriend’.

Realizing that she had been conned, M. reported the case to the police.

Ngo Thi Anh Thu has also been arrested, according to Tien Giang police.

Many cases of similar scamming have been reported across Vietnam in recent times. In Quang Ninh alone, three women had been swindled of more than VND1.2 billion ($52,863) this year.

In April, a woman in the central province of Quang Nam was scammed off VND900 million ($40,000) by an online boyfriend who claimed to be an officer of the U.S. Army.

Earlier this year, a woman from Lam Dong Province in the Central Highlands was cheated to send VND366 million ($16,000) to a con artist whom she met on Facebook.

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