Wei Hong Qiu at the police station

Wei, born in 1982 and residing in China’s Fujian province, was prosecuted and put into temporary detention in line with Article 174 of the 2015 Penal Code (revised in 2017).

Earlier, on May 23, Wei and another Chinese suspect named A Qing were detected by a guard while withdrawing money from an ATM in Quang Ninh’s Ha Long City. Informed by the guard, police arrived and caught Wei, while A Qing escaped.

From the arrest, more than 180 million VND, four ATM cards, a mobile phone, and several documents were seized.

Wei later admitted he knows A Long, also a Chinese national who is yet to be identified, via the QQ social network.

According to Wei, A Long hired him to use ATM cards to withdraw money. After entering Vietnam, he met A Qing, also hired by A Long.

Police said from May 2 to 23, Wei and A Qing used five ATM cards to withdraw cash for eight times, appropriating a sum of over 565 million VND (24,398 USD).

Initial investigation showed that many people have transferred money worth more than 4 billion VND (172,768 USD) into the seized ATM cards. At least six of the victims were threatened to do so by a scammer that pretended to be a representative of the authorities.

Further investigation is underway to arrest suspects related to the crimal ring.-VNA