A man in Vietnam’s Central Highlands province of Dak Nong was asked to receive a box of gold and money on behalf of his friend on Facebook, who impersonated an American soldier, and was swindled over VND453 million (US$18,171).

The Dak Nong People’s Procuracy on Tuesday informed that H., 42, residing in Dak Wil Commune, Cu Jut District, reported his case of being scammed by a con artist.

H. earlier made friends with a person on Facebook whose account was Riva Kumar.

Riva Kumar called himself an American soldier working for the United Nations’ peacekeeping force in Syria.

He said that he had a lot of money and gold and wanted to send them to Vietnam. He asked H. to receive the money and gold on his behalf and got H.’s agreement.

On September 26, a woman called H., telling him that the money and gold had arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City and asking him to pay transport costs of VND13 million ($522).

Some 20 minutes after H. transferred the money, he received another phone call asking him to transfer VND53 million ($2,126), reasoning that customs officers detected a huge amount of money.

After the second money transfer, H. was asked to continue transferring money as there was a large amount of U.S. dollars in the box.

He later came to a bank to transfer VND137 million ($5,503).

The woman later requested H. to send another VND250 million ($10,043) and H. continued to agree to the request.

After transferring VND250 million, H. got another phone call saying that police had found a lot of gold and U.S. dollars in the box and required him to transfer an additional VND501 million ($20,126).

H. did not have enough money, so he could not transfer this amount.

In total, H. transferred over VND453 million.

However, H. did not receive the box and failed to contact his friend on Facebook and the woman who had asked him to transfer the money.

H. later reported the case to the Cu Jut District police.

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