According to a report from Dak Nong Provincial Police Department, Luong The Vu, 26, was introduced in an article calling for financial support for his ill child on the Charity Column of Dantri/Dtinews Online Newspaper in 2018. The newspaper then transferred the money which readers sent to support his family to his bank account.
The man told the police that he started to take money from other charity cases published by Dantri since September 2020. To do this, he would read about the cases calling for financial support and the amount of money they received which were all published in the newspaper.
Vu first called a woman in Thanh Hoa Province who received financial support from Dantri's readers to cover hospital fees for her small child. He told her that he was a staff at the newspaper and that the newspaper had made a mistake when sending her the donation which was VND 8 million (USD348) higher than the real amount she received. Vu then asked the woman to send that VND 8 million back to his bank account.
With that same trick, Vu had cheated nine other cases who were all poor people or those with illness.
In November 2020, authorities in Dak Nong also gave a 15-year sentence to a local man, Nguyen Van Phuc, for swindling donated money from dozens of disadvantaged people who had received donations.
Nguyen Van Phuc and his victims at the court on November 25, 2020
And Phuc also called her that day saying that he wanted to send money to help her. He told her to fill some information in the link he sent to receive the money. And just a while after Thao followed, she found that her account lost VND100 million (USD4,348).
Thao reported the case to Dantri/DTiNews and was instructed to contact the police who have expanded their investigations to find dozens of previous cons by Phuc.
Some other victims of Phuc included Ho Van Hung who lost VND 69 million (USD3,000), and Nguyen Sy Chung who lost VND35 million (USD1,252).
