Hanoi police detain three Chinese men over bank card scam

By VnExpress   May 8, 2017 | 11:40 pm PT
The suspects withdrew nearly $1,500 from several ATMs in the city center before they were nabbed.

Police in Vietnam have detained three Chinese citizens on charges of using counterfeit bank cards to steal cash from ATMs in Hanoi, VietnamPlus reported.

The men, identified as Zhu Hai Rong, 40, Qiu Shui Bing, 41, and Zhong Jian Hua, 37, are from Jiangxi Province, China.

They arrived in Vietnam on April 22 with 110 counterfeit bank cards and instructions on how to steal money from ATMs provided by another Chinese suspect, whose identity has yet to be verified by the police, said the report posted late on Monday.

Once in Hanoi, they blended in with groups of foreign tourists and made several successful withdrawals worth about $1,450 before being caught red-handed by the city's high-tech police on the night of April 23.

Police are widening their investigation.

Despite calls from IT experts to raise security around payment systems, ATM networks in Hanoi have been targeted on several occasions. 

In March, two Chinese citizens received jail terms of up to seven years from a Hanoi court for counterfeiting bank cards and using them to steal VND210 million ($9,200) from local ATMs.

In December last year, the court sentenced two Chinese nationals to 42 months for a similar offence. The two had conducted 33 transactions and withdrawn VND64.4 million before they were arrested.

 
 
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