Police in Phu Yen Province, south-central Vietnam have busted two groups of loan sharks who demanded interest rates as high as 300-800 percent per year, a local police official confirmed on Monday morning.

The provincial police department has pressed charges against five people for allegedly offering lending services with interest exceeding the legal limit, Senior Lieutenant Colonel Tran Thanh Tam, head of the department’s criminal police division, said on Monday.

Police detained Bui Anh Tuan, 34, and Nguyen Trung Kien, 19, both from Hanoi; Nguyen Tuan Anh, 26, and Vu Hoang Giang, 28, both hailing from northern Thai Nguyen Province.

Meanwhile, Do Van Dung, 35, from northern Bac Giang Province, was released on bail pending further investigation, as he has to take care of his child aged below three by himself.

Findings from police officers showed that Bui Anh Tuan led a loan shark ring.

He and the four suspects earlier created Facebook accounts to promote their lending services in Phu Yen.

Tuan tasked the four with working directly with borrowers.

After the lenders and the borrowers agreed on a loan agreement, the former collected the identity cards, business licenses or other related papers from the latter to process lending procedures.

These loan sharks provided different lending packages, worth between VND5 million (US$204.55) and VND30 million ($1,227), through daily installments with the yearly interest rates ranging from 304 to 365 percent.

Tuan and the accomplices admitted that they had offered VND1.34 billion ($54,822) worth of loans to nine borrowers in Phu Yen and made illicit gains of more than VND320 million ($13,091).

Also on Monday morning, police in Phu Yen’s Tuy Hoa City announced that they had arrested three other suspects for providing loan shark services.

The trio included Nguyen Hoang Thien, 24, a native of northern Ha Nam Province, Vu Ngoc Duy and Vu Quang Khoa, both aged 26 and coming from Hanoi.

According to a police report, the three had offered loans worth billions of Vietnamese dong with interest ranging between 400 and 800 percent per year to local residents in Tuy Hoa over the past year.

Aside from these three, police officers dispatched forces to Ha Nam and Hanoi to apprehend 12 other suspected loan sharks.

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