Two Ukrainians arrested for running usury companies in Vietnam

Tymur Bugaevskiy, 34, and Iryna Kravchuk, 39, were taken in Monday and the police also summoned 63 other persons of interest and seized 68 laptops, 100 mobile phones and other pieces of evidence.

The Ministry of Public Security had earlier discovered a criminal group with connections with many Vietnamese people setting up finance companies that act as a front for large-scale usury.

When Bugaevskiy and Kravchuk arrived in Vietnam to run these companies, they were promptly arrested and the police also launched raids on four companies in HCMC and Khanh Hoa.

Authorities said the criminal group is helmed by Roman Katerynchyk, 38, who is now on the run.

He had collaborated with Le Thanh Huynh Cang, 53, and Nguyen Thi Nhat Phuong, 34, to offer loans on applications Easycash.vn and Oncredit and the website Oncredit.asia.com.

Since 2019 Katerynchyk had given Cang US$11.4 million to set up loansharking companies, including $11 million last year.

The money came from SCA bank in Singapore and TAS bank in Cyprus.

Cang and other Vietnamese are in charge of approving loans ranging from VND500,000 to tens of millions of dong through software he has provided at interest rates of 365-2,000%.

The police said hundreds of thousands of people have borrowed money from these companies, which have illegally earned billions of dong as a result.

Their investigation continues.