Gang sells private bank accounts to criminals in Cambodia

Nghe An Province's Pham Ngoc Dat, 21, and seven other men are now under investigation for "illegal trading of bank account information" as per the Criminal Code, police said Saturday.

The others were Hoang Khac Trung, 21, Ngo Duc Y, 36, Nguyen Trong Duc, 28, Le Van Cuong, 33, and 19-year-olds Nguyen Van Cong, Nguyen Van Lap and Nguyen Van Ly.

According to the police, Dat used to work in Cambodia and knew that several criminals there had a demand to buy other people’s bank account information to serve their crimes.

In 2020, he and his accomplices offered to buy the private bank accounts of people in Nghe An and several other localities at the price of VND1.5 million (US$60) per account "to run several advertisement programs."

After that, he sold those accounts to Cambodia at VND4 million per account.

His actions were discovered in early October. By then, police identified that his group had bought 23 accounts and pocketed more than VND55 million.

As investigated, the criminals in Cambodia would use the bank account information for money laundering, gambling and committing online fraud.

All accounts after being sold by Dat to those in Cambodia had been used to fraudulently appropriate property in cyberspace with a transaction amount of up to VND200 billion per account.