Police in Hanoi have initiated legal proceedings against 11 members of two swindling rings that defrauded cellphone users of VND23 billion (US$1.08 million) in total by using false text messages to lure them to send messages to designated numbers. Le Ngoc Tien, the leader of one ring, and Tran Ngoc Hung and Nguyen Ngoc Quyet, the operators of the other, along with their eight accomplices were arrested on June 13, 2014. Of these swindlers, Tien, Hung, Quyet and two others have been detained, while the others are out on bail, the capital’s police said.     All the 11 people have been charged with “using computer networks, telecommunications networks, Internet or digital devices to appropriate property” pursuant to Article 226b of the Penal Code, the police said. Before being nabbed, Tien, a Hanoi man, was an employee of FPT, one of the leading telecom service providers in Vietnam. Tien also set up three digital content service trading companies, VVas, Vcontent, and Bac Dai Duong Consultant JSC, and hired people to work as directors. These companies signed contracts with local mobile operators Viettel, MobiFone, and Vinaphone to provide digital content services through some service numbers including 7x68 and 7x77. The con artists then sent bogus messages to cellphone users, falsely informing that they had won big prizes or valuable gifts from programs they had concocted. One of such messages reads, “Congratulations! Subscriber 090xxxx, you have been given a music gift and compliments from a relative through the operator. To receive the gift, please compose “QT” and send it to our service number 7768.” In the event that the subscriber sent such a message back to the designated number, he or she would lose VND15,000-30,000 ($1.4) apiece. Victims only knew they had been cheated after waiting for nothing for a long time. Similarly, Hung and Quyet, also of Hanoi, set up three companies: Thien Ha, Thien Ngan and Ngan Ha and signed digital content service contracts with telecom service providers to con cellphone users. The two rings cheated their victims of VND23 billion and they actually pocketed 45 percent of this “revenue.” The remaining 55 percent went to the telecom service providers, as specified in their contracts, investigators said. Although gaining the larger share of the pie, these telecom service providers are not held responsible for the fraud, as under their contracts with the companies set up by the swindlers, the providers of digital content services solely bear responsibility for what they offer, investigators said. Police are continuing their investigation into the case.

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