Woman loses billions of dong after joining ‘Stress-relief chatter’ Zalo group

Vũ Ngọc Cường met the 50-year-old woman through a Zalo group called “Chém gió xả xì tress,” a space for casual conversation and stress relief. On September 7, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced him to 17 years and six months in prison for fraud and forging seals and documents belonging to agencies and organizations.

Cường, 33, from Ninh Bình, had no stable job and a previous conviction for fraud. After meeting the woman several times for meals and social gatherings, he learned that she was financially well-off and wanted to place money in a savings account.

He introduced himself as an employee of Vietnam Public Joint Stock Commercial Bank, known as PVcomBank, and promised that he could secure a high interest rate. He told her that she only needed to open an account and transfer the money, after which the bank would deliver the savings books to her home.

The woman agreed. Cường handled the account-opening process but registered it with his own phone number, allowing him to receive the one-time passwords and balance notifications. Between November 10 and December 29, 2023, she made four transfers totaling 3.2 billion dong. Cường moved all the money into his own account and spent it.

To conceal the theft, he hired someone to produce six fake PVcomBank savings books matching the 3.2 billion dong and handed them to her. When she later took the books to a PVcomBank branch, staff told her that none appeared in the bank’s system and that the account no longer held any money.

She told Cường that she had lost the six books and would go to the bank herself to request replacements. Fearing exposure, he said he would handle the replacement and hired someone online to make six more fake books. When she received them, she asked him to accompany her to the bank to try to withdraw the money. He then admitted that the books were forged and that he was not a bank employee.

The indictment said Cường returned 200 million dong to the woman and lent 1.9 billion dong to her boyfriend. After the two sides agreed to offset those amounts, Cường still owes her 1.1 billion dong.