Scam Operation Busts Continue
And the trade deficit widens
Good morning from Ho Chi Minh City, and welcome to the latest edition of the Vietnam Weekly. To new readers: everyone gets the same opening section of the newsletter, but only paying subscribers get access to the whole thing.
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Protecting Cyberspace
Yesterday marked National Cybersecurity Day, created in 2024 to “promote national cybersecurity awareness and mobilize public engagement in safeguarding the digital realm.”
This year’s theme was “For a Humane Cyberspace for Everyone.”
Prime Minister Lê Minh Hưng visited the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention to commemorate the day.
Digital crime, especially scam/fraud operations, is a prominent ongoing concern. I previously wrote about the crackdown on visa violations and busts of a few Chinese scam groups attempting to set up operations in Vietnam.
Last week, the government sent out the text message below:
Police across the country continue to uncover other scam operations.
In early July, officers in Móng Cái, a city in Quảng Ninh Province on the border with China, found 34 foreign nationals - one from Malaysia, two from China, and 31 from the Philippines - setting up a scam ring in a house.
The individuals reportedly told the police that they had originally come to Vietnam looking for legitimate work, and were then contacted by Chinese recruiters via messaging apps.
Later that month, police in Phú Quốc detained two Vietnamese men for housing four Chinese nationals who had illegally entered the country from Cambodia to run digital scams.
HCMC, meanwhile, recently deported 76 Chinese nationals for violating local laws.
Some provinces are getting creative in their approach to combating scams.
According to Tuổi Trẻ, this week the Thanh Hóa provincial police released an app called ‘Fraud Prevention Simulation’ with the motto ‘Make mistakes in the game so you do not make them in real life.’
The app presents 30 scenarios based on actual scams with 121 potential solutions to educate people on how to identify fraud attempts.
The rest of today’s edition, for paid subscribers:
- Economy. Vietnam’s trade deficit broke a record that has stood since 2008. What’s driving it, why the 10% growth target is fading, and the US$1.5 trillion financing question.
- Data Corner: North Carolina killed its deal with VinFast, plus a drop in remittances to HCMC and a new fine for workplace harassment.
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