By Khanh Vu
HANOI, June 12 (Reuters) – Vietnamese police have busted a group suspected of trying to establish a large-scale online scam centre in the country, authorities said on Friday, as criminal networks spread their operations across Southeast Asia.
Police in Phu Tho province uncovered and disrupted a transnational group linked to online fraud syndicates operating in Cambodia, preventing it from setting up what they described as a major scam hub in Vietnam, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.
Four people were arrested, including a Chinese national and three Vietnamese, according to the statement.
Investigators said the group had rented multiple resorts, farmstays and villas in Hanoi, Lao Cai and Phu Tho to house dozens of people as part of their preparations, adding that many of them had previously worked at scam centres in Cambodia.
Police also seized dozens of computers, hundreds of mobile phones and internet devices allegedly used for online fraud, saying the site was close to becoming operational.
The raid “prevented the formation of a large-scale transnational high-tech fraud centre within Vietnam,” and also helped safeguard national security and protect people’s assets, the ministry said.
In a separate case, police in business hub Ho Chi Minh City earlier this week detected 83 Chinese nationals staying at a hotel in the city, also allegedly preparing to set up an online scam centre there, state media reported on Friday.
They had illegally entered Vietnam from Cambodia, Tuoi Tre newspaper cited the police as saying, adding that they were planning to target Chinese victims.
Speaking at a virtual press briefing on Wednesday, FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey described scam compounds as among “the most significant threats facing the world today”, warning that their impact across Southeast Asia was “growing at an exponential rate”.
Bailey said the operations are run by sophisticated transnational networks that move people, money and technology across borders, exploiting weak governance and emerging tools to expand globally.
Amnesty International said in a report on Monday that dozens of suspected global scam compounds in Cambodia are still in operation despite a months-long crackdown by authorities.
The Philippines’ Bureau of Immigration said on Thursday that 18 Filipinos were repatriated from Vietnam and Cambodia late last month after falling victim to suspected trafficking and illegal recruitment schemes linked to online scams.
They had been promised work as livestreamers, and some of them ended up working in suspected scam or gaming hubs in Cambodia and Vietnam, the bureau said.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by David Stanway)
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