Hanoi police arrested Monday a young man who targeted Vietnamese living overseas to steal their Facebook accounts for fraudulent purposes.

Le Viet Anh was captured by PC50 – a police unit fighting against hi-tech crime – when he was stalking ‘preys’ at an Internet café in his hometown, Quang Tri Province in central Vietnam, according to officers.

In late 2013, Anh began browsing the Facebook profiles of Vietnamese people living in other countries to hunt for victims, the PC50 police said.

One of his victims was Nguyen Thi Loan, who lives in Hong Kong. After scanning Loan’s friend list on Facebook, Anh found the profile of one of her closest friends.

The 19-year-old man then cloned a Facebook account, using a photo of Loan’s friend as the profile picture, and sent the Hong Kong-based woman a friend request.

Recognizing her friend by the profile picture, Loan accepted the request without any doubt, thinking her friend had just created a new account.

Anh later asked Loan to lend him her Facebook account so that he could apply for a credit card, which Loan followed.

The cyber-swindler then changed the account’s password, as well as replaced the email address and phone number Loan used to sign up for her Facebook account with his own so that the victim could never get back her account.

After taking full control of the victim’s Facebook page, Anh began his fraudulent campaign against her friends and relatives.

The man used the stolen Facebook account to contact Van, a Hanoi resident, saying that there was a huge demand for Vietnamese prepaid phone cards in Hong Kong.

Anh told Van that the cards would be converted into international codes and used for online payment, adding that such business could yield massive profits and she would receive hefty commissions if she agreed to cooperate.

To build trust, Anh asked Van to send him her bank account number so that he could transfer money in advance for the woman to buy the prepaid cards.

In fact, the con artist used a free-texting service on the Internet to send Van a message, saying VND40 million (US$1,883) had been transferred to her account. The SMS came from an international phone number, duping Van into thinking that she indeed received money from Loan from Hong Kong.

The Hanoi woman immediately used the VND40 million from her own pocket to buy prepaid cards and send their serial numbers to Anh via Facebook.

Without hesitation, Anh used the card numbers to refill his online game account before withdrawing the money in cash.

It was not until Van checked her bank account that she realized she had received nothing from the person she still thought was her friend, Loan in Hong Kong.

She only learnt of the whole story after phoning the real Loan, and then the Hanoi woman reported the con to PC50.

PC50 said they have received ten similar complaints in the year to date, with the victims getting cheated out of VND300 million ($14,120) in total.

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