3 Nigerians arrested as 2 gangs con US$1.3 mil in Vietnam
Vietnamese police have arrested three Nigerians and eight locals belonging to two different gangs for allegedly conning people out of more than US$1.3 million.
The gangs tricked the victims by informing them they had won grand prizes or gift packages from abroad but had to pay some money as fees for collecting the prize or bribing police and customs officers since the gifts were of big value.
They used bank accounts created with stolen or fake ID cards to collect the money.
Ho Chi Minh City police arrested Michael IkeChukwu Leonard, 44, on April 5 with three Vietnamese accomplices for cheating more than 100 victims around the country out of more than VND20 billion (US$900,000) over more than a year.
Earlier this month they had arrested Ihugba Augustine Chinonso, 30, Onu Chinonso Peter, 31, and five Vietnamese for tricking many victims into paying VND10 billion since late last year.
One victim from the central city of Da Nang said she had lost more than VND2.1 billion. She had been promised a gift package that contained more than a million dollars from a family friend overseas.
A man from Hanoi, who works for a domestic airline, borrowed money to pay nearly VND3.5 billion to receive a prize worth US$1 million from a UK company.
He said he got a lot of emails, all in English, and he was trusting because it had all “seemed very professional.”
The members of the latter gang said they had received instructions from two other foreign men, who are still at large.
