The Hanoi People’s Court has sentenced a Chinese man to 30 months in prison for stealing ATM card info and using the info to make false cards in an attempt to appropriate money from cardholders. Through such offenses, the 32-year-old man, whose name in Vietnamese is Ngo Van Tong, was charged with “appropriating the State’s secrets,” the court said at the trial that opened yesterday. According to the indictment, Tong befriended another Chinese man through the Internet. That man suggested that Tong help him steal money from ATMs. A plan was set up between the men and they later brought ATM card readers, cameras, printers for ATM cars, and other tools and materials into Vietnam for their scam. Under their assignment, Tu was in charge of installing secret devices into ATMs to steal information from cards inserted into the machines, while Tong was responsible for removing the devices. On August 22, 2012, after arriving in Vietnam, Tu and Tong rented a room at a hotel on Nguyen Thi Dinh Street in Hanoi.

After surveying a number of ATMs in the city, the two decided to target an ATM booth owned by the DongA Commercial Joint Stock Bank on Truong Chinh Street. With the information stolen from cards from the booth, the two men created five false cards, but after they inserted them into some ATMs, the machines did not release the cards. Six days later, they returned to the booth to install their devices to continue stealing information. One day later, when Tong arrived at the booth to take back the devices, police acting on a tip-off from the bank arrested him. On searching Tong’s room at the hotel, police seized many types of equipment, machinery and materials for use in making false ATM cards. Initial investigations showed that the two men had yet to withdraw any money from the booth. The police are hunting for Tu, who disappeared after Tong was arrested.