On February 3, Quang Nam provincial police announced that the investigative security agency has prosecuted 47 individuals for their involvement in “usurious lending in civil transactions”.
These 47 defendants are part of phase 2 of the usurious lending in civil transactions case, with a scale of over 20,000 billion VND, which was investigated and cracked down by the Quang Nam provincial police in collaboration with other units and local police in the middle of 2023.
Prior to that, in July 2023, the Quang Nam provincial police coordinated with the criminal investigation units of the Ministry of Public Security and local police to investigate and dismantle the largest online usurious lending network ever in the country.
As a result, the investigative security agency has prosecuted 54 foreign individuals and Vietnamese nationals for crimes such as “Usurious lending in civil transactions”, “Embezzlement”, “Illegal transportation of goods and currency across borders”, and “Money laundering”.
This network has provided loans to over 1 million people nationwide through mobile applications, with an interest rate of over 2,300% per year. The total amount of usurious loans reached over 20,000 billion VND, with illicit profits of over 8,000 billion VND; they also engaged in money laundering and illegally transferred over 5,000 billion VND out of Vietnam.
To conceal their usurious lending activities and large illegitimate profits, the individuals involved established dozens of “ghost” companies, used thousands of bank accounts, and continuously transferred funds in order to “launder money” and illegally transport money across borders.
Furthermore, they employed debt collection tactics reminiscent of organized crime, manipulating and editing images to intimidate borrowers into repaying their debts…
Tran Thuong
