Detained: Bùi Thị Thanh Nga and her boyfriend for defrauding tens of thousands of people out of 10,000 billion VND.

The Dong Nai Provincial Police Investigation Agency has decided to initiate criminal proceedings and prosecute five individuals, including Nguyen Quoc Hung (41), Bui Thi Thanh Nga (34, Hung’s girlfriend), Ho Long Tri (45) from Ho Chi Minh City, Dinh Huu Hay (34) from Binh Dinh province, and Than Van Hiep (43) from Trang Dai ward, Bien Hoa city. The individuals have been charged with “appropriation of property by fraud” as stipulated in Clause 4, Article 174 of the Criminal Code. These decisions have been approved by the Provincial People’s Procuracy.

According to the initial investigation, in February 2023, Nguyen Quoc Hung contacted an anonymous group on Telegram to hire them to develop a cryptocurrency software project called Matrix Chaine (MTC) based on the “SafePal” electronic wallet platform and the B2B Smart trade platform. The development cost was 20,000 USDT (approximately 520 million VND). Hung then discussed with Bui Thi Thanh Nga and they jointly contributed 400 million VND as capital.

To defraud participants, Hung created a “SafePal” electronic wallet and provided it to the anonymous group to install in the MTC cryptocurrency system, calling it the “platform fee wallet.” Each participant had to pay 1 USDT (approximately 26,000 VND) into this wallet, which was then managed by Nga on her phone. Hung and Nga used 40% of the money collected in the “platform fee wallet” to pay the Leaders (those in charge of different areas), 5% for promoting MTC, and the remaining 55% for their personal expenses.

Additionally, when listing MTC on the PancakeSwap exchange, Hung kept a “SafePal” wallet containing approximately 100,000,000 VND worth of MTC to manipulate the program and influence the value, enticing players or withdrawing and appropriating their USDT deposits.

Hung and Nga also regularly organized training sessions for the Leaders and promotional events to build communities on Telegram and Facebook, attracting tens of thousands of participants with promises of “huge profits and incredible commissions.” They managed to gather over 138,000 registered accounts and received deposits totaling 394,276,762 USDT (over 10,000 billion VND).

Subsequently, Nguyen Quoc Hung and Bui Thi Thanh Nga used the “SafePal” electronic wallet software to create multiple decentralized wallets under the names of Hung, Nga, and Nga’s sister, Bui Thi Thanh Hoa. They used these wallets to receive money from the “platform fee wallet” and sell it to individuals specializing in buying and selling USDT. With the money obtained from the players, Hung and Nga bought real estate, including apartments, houses, and land in Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Hoa Binh, Hung Yen, and Thai Nguyen. All the properties were registered under the names of Nga, her father, and her mother. The Dong Nai Provincial Police Investigation Agency (PC02) has seized many related exhibits and exhibits for investigation.

The Dong Nai Provincial Police are actively investigating and will strictly handle the case in accordance with the law.

To facilitate the investigation and clarify the offenses of the subjects, the Dong Nai Provincial Police Investigation Agency requests that any victims of this group promptly report to the Criminal Police Department at 47 Nguyen Ai Quoc Street, Tan Hiep Ward, Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province. The direct phone number is 0693.480182.