Police in the northern Bac Ninh Province announced arrests of ring members Tuesday, adding investigations into the network are ongoing.
The alleged leader, Son Chan Hyun, 42, said a Chinese national living in Cambodia, known as “Da Hu,” originally recruited the group to carry out the phone scams.
When Cambodian authorities intensified their scrutiny on illicit call centers, Son ordered the group to shift to Vietnam.
The ring members entered Vietnam through Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi on Jan. 13, taking advantage of the country’s visa waiver policy.
By early February they had rented a house in Bac Ninh’s Hap Linh Ward to serve as their new operational base.
Son managed the seven South Koreans through messaging app Telegram, assigning tasks, distributing bonuses and slapping penalties and using scam scripts. He instructed them to study the scripts and refine their tactics using their “years of fraud experience.”
The syndicate’s primary targets were shops and retail agencies based in South Korea.
Their scheme worked in a highly coordinated two-step process. First, suspects would call a business, posing as representatives of diplomatic agencies looking to place urgent, lucrative bulk orders.
Once the shop owners took the bait and scrambled to find suppliers to fulfill the massive orders, Son would step in, posing as a supplier having the goods the victims needed and offering them at below-market prices.
But he would demand a 50% deposit or full payment in advance. The moment the funds came into bank accounts controlled by Da Hu, the group would severe all contact, blocking calls and messages to erase their tracks.
Da Hu reportedly paid the scammers in the Tether cryptocurrency, with their monthly salaries ranging from 2,000 to 7,000 USDT.
Authorities estimate the group’s total haul through its Cambodian and Vietnamese operations to be worth around 1.2 billion won.
In Vietnam alone, it carried out some 20 scams, extracting 622.6 million won from victims.
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