Police in Hanoi have busted a 14-person ring that stole Yahoo Messenger (YM) nicknames and then used the names to chat with their victims’ relatives or friends to get money from them.

All of the ring members are students at a school in the northern province of Quang Tri, an official at the Hanoi Social Crime Investigation Police Department told the media.

The ring, led by Nguyen Van Bi, 16, of Quang Tri, had sent to a number of YM users links containing a keylog, a spy tool used to capture computer users’ keystrokes.

When those users clicked on the harmful link, a backdoor was installed on their compacter to record the operations of the device. Through such methods, hacker can easily steal the username and nickname of YM users.

Once the names were stolen, the students used them to chat with the owners’ relatives or friends -- whose user names are indicated in the YM user’s directory – and then conned them into giving them money.

The ring’s most common trick was the ploy of asking their chatters to buy phone recharging cards for them and then provide the card number codes.

They also lured their victims into buying game cards for them and providing the card numbers through YM chatting.

Through such tricks, the ring has appropriated at least hundreds of millions of dong from their victims nationwide, investigators said.

Hanoi police are expanding their investigation to determine how many people have fallen victim to the ring, and find out exactly how much money the ring has appropriated.

The police have called on those who have lost their YM nicks to report their case for investigation.

(VND100 million = US$4,800)