Police impostors arrested in Hanoi

Hanoi police said today they have busted a ring of impersonators who had been swindled people by offering them positions in the police force for money.

The gang of police impersonators had cheated around 1,000 people so far, they said.

The leader of the gang, Hoa Huu Long, 54, was arrested with four others and charged with swindling and impersonating police officials. Fake documents, uniforms and photos of individuals with uniforms of different ranks were seized.

Deputy Director of Hanoi Police Department, Nguyen Anh Tuan, said that the group had used fake uniforms and other props to cheat people.

Long and his group have been misleading the public since 2015, faking documents to establish the “Dong Duong Group under Ministry of National Defense.”

Long pretended to be a major general put in charge of leading the Dong Duong Group. He instructed gang members to swindle job seekers, charging them VND65-150 million ($2,800-6,500) each, depending on which rank they were applying for.

The gang asked their victims to keep the deal a secret as it was still a classified project. Police also discovered that the group had created fake documents about future infrastructure projects purportedly passed by the Defense Ministry, in order to deceive prospective investors.

Police have called on all victims of the fraudsters to report their cases to the nearest police station.

This is not the first time such job scam was busted in Vietnam. Bribing for job in public offices is not uncommon in Vietnam, which many fraudsters have taken advantage of.