One of the businessmen is 28-year-old Duong Hong Le, of Dong Thap Province, who set up the Century Vision Trade, Advertising Service and Training One-Member Co Ltd, with its main business line being advertising, the department, under the Ministry of Public Security, said.

In October 2010, Le set up the company’s official website at danhsachkhachhang.com, but the site has focused only on offering to sell lists of information on individuals, companies and organizations.

The website, set up professionally, includes the company's contact names and telephones, accounts at four banks, and the business address of 283 Cach Mang Thang Tam, District 10, HCMC.

The website contains the names of 30,000 prepaid mobile phone subscribers of MobiFone in HCMC, 1,200 chairmen of management boards of companies, 850 members of the Entrepreneurs' Club 2030, 780 stock investors at the Vien Dong Company, 1,100 TVSI stock investors, 700 customers of the VGB gold trading floor, 2,230 owners of real estate in the Phu My Hung New Urban Area, 800 owners of properties in Him Lam , 1,200 customers of the Saigon Pearl Project, 1,300 Mercedes owners, 750 BMW owners, 1,300 members of the FV Hospital, 10,000 customers of Nguyen Kim Shopping Center, and 500 architects at various companies in HCMC.

According to investigators, Le has 51 lists of information for sale at a price of VND500,000-600,000 per list.

Le told investigators that he had earned about VND21 million (US$1,000) from the illegal business.

He said he had halted his business operations on January 1, 2011 after Tuoi Tre published an article about his illegal trading of private information, but six months later, he resumed his activities, since he found that many other websites did the same and thought that such activities were not banned.

Le said he had bought all of the lists from a man named Le Minh Trung, owner of the website www.timkhachhang.com, and Hua Van Tuan, who owns the website www.dtavip.com.

Source: Tuoitre