Vietnamese police busted an international crime syndicate using information technology to hack into bank accounts, arresting 99 criminals from China and Taiwan within a week.

The arrested Chinese and Taiwanese criminals.

Since March 2010, police noticed many groups of 8-10 Taiwanese and Chinese criminals entering Vietnam, mainly through HCM City and some southern provinces via different ways.

In late June, police discovered that these groups had begun using information technology to attack bank accounts of regional citizens. They also had people working in Shanghai and select Chinese provinces.

The group used telecom service providers such as SPT, FPT and Viettel to carry out the attacks.

The police arrested 99 people, including 76 Taiwanese and 23 Chinese citizens who participated in the crimes during the last week. The suspects had been living in HCM City.

Police seized the suspects’ computers, laptops, mobile phones, electricity generators and ATM card readers.

According to investigators, the suspects had previously performed similar scams in Taiwan, China and Thailand before coming to Vietnam.

Hi-tech equipment used by criminals.

A majority are wanted criminals. Investigators believe that the group was using Vietnam as a base to attack companies in China and other countries in the region.

Taiwanese and Chinese officials have asked Vietnamese authorities to hand over these criminals so that they can conduct their own investigations.

Major-General To Lam, General Department of Security 1 Chief, confirmed on July 7 that the arrested suspects were the ones who performed the hacker crimes and that all their ringleaders are based abroad. They are often divided into small groups of 8-10 members that work independently of each other. Each group is assigned a certain task and only the ringleaders know all the groups.

PV