================================================================================================
CASE 279  |  Le Duc Nguyen  |  May 17, 2020  |  Vietnam
================================================================================================

DATABASE RECORD
  id                  279
  date                May 17, 2020
  original_date       May 17, 2020
  year                2020
  month               5
  quarter             2020-Q2
  victim              Le Duc Nguyen
  location            Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
  country             Vietnam
  scenario            Authority Misuse
  description         Cops used fake gun and fake HIV syringe to rob $1.6M in bitcoin.
  kidnappings         1
  violence_torture    1
  drugs_alcohol       1
  weapons             1
  theft               1
  life_taken          0
  money_wanted        $1,6M
  coin_type           BTC
  reports             VietnamExpress
  notes               Hired detectives to locate victim, who dodged first attacks but then at gunpoint succumbed, fake gun, fake hiv syringe
  has_processed_date  0
  created_at          2025-11-14 09:05:23

AI SUMMARY  [revised on review, verified against the sources in this file. Live DB still holds the shorter bulk-import summary — apply this to it.]
  **Victims:** A Ho Chi Minh City businessman and bitcoin investor (referred to in the record as Le Duc Nguyen), together with his wife, children and brother-in-law, who were seized with him.
  
  **Attackers:** A group led by businessman Ho Ngoc Tai (32) that included two serving HCMC police officers (Nguyen Quoc Dung, 40, and Nguyen Anh Tuan, 28) and around 15 others, plus a hired private detective who mapped the family's routines. Tai's group blamed the victim's advice for their own 2018 crypto losses and plotted to take his bitcoin.
  
  **Attack Method:** After a staged motorbike-into-car 'accident' on 12 May 2020 failed (the victim drove off), the group learned his family was travelling from Bao Loc to HCMC and intercepted the car at Dau Giay, Dong Nai, on 17 May.
  
  **Violence Used:** The victim and his brother-in-law were threatened with a fake gun; his wife and children were put in another car and menaced with a syringe of supposed HIV-infected blood (actually red ink); over the two-hour drive back to the city he was beaten and forced to call his brother to move 1,000 bitcoins.
  
  **Crypto Demanded/Stolen:** The gang demanded 1,000 bitcoins; investigators found 168 bitcoins (about VND37 billion / US$1.63 million) and other property were actually taken.
  
  **Status:** The family was dropped by a road in District 2, their phones and cameras taken to destroy evidence, and they reported it to police. The culprits were arrested in June 2020; two police officers and 15 others face robbery charges carrying up to life imprisonment, with no trial date set.

LINKED SOURCES
  [url]  https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/hcmc-cops-charged-with-1-6-mln-bitcoin-robbery-4393892.html

NOTES ON THIS FILE
  * matched to sheet row 66: exact match on victim + year, unique on both sides

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ARTICLE 1
  Source   VietnamExpress
  URL      https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/hcmc-cops-charged-with-1-6-mln-bitcoin-robbery-4393892.html
  Origin   reported_K&R sheet, row 66, column "Articles"
  Length   2,980 chars
  Trimmed  site furniture removed on review; kept text is verbatim. Full original (2,994 chars) archived, sha256 0557a082d33daa4132990ff855faa2116be55c575e65f0ae47a550c61bdf2d85
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HCMC cops charged with $1.6 mln bitcoin robbery
Members of a group that orchestrated a bitcoin robbery in HCMC in May 2020. Photo courtesy of the police Two police officers and their accomplices in HCMC have been charged with orchestrating a fake accident and stealing VND37 billion ($1.63 million) worth of bitcoins from a businessman.
Police officers Nguyen Quoc Dung, 40, and Nguyen Anh Tuan, 28, businessman Ho Ngoc Tai, 32, and 14 others face robbery charges in court, prosecutors said Tuesday. The offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Businessmen Tai and others were bitcoin investors in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. They engaged in transactions with a man named Le, another businessman in HCMC.
In 2018, Tai and an accomplice, 38-year-old Tran Ngoc Hoang, sold 1,000 bitcoins worth around VND100 billion and used the money to buy other cryptocurrencies, but ended up losing their investment. Tai’s group believed it was Le’s business advice that was responsible for their loss, so they plotted to steal his bitcoins.
Tai hired a private investigator for VND25 million to find Le. Then he enlisted the help of 36-year-old Trinh Tuan Anh, another cryptocurrency businessman, and police officers Nguyen Quoc Dung and Nguyen Anh Tuan.
Tai sent Le’s personal info and pictures of his car to the group, as well as VND50 million as rewards for finding him. Mai Xuan Phot, a detective hired by Tai, illegally used various surveillance technologies to find Le and map his family’s routines.
On May 11, 2020, Tai and some of his friends traveled from Da Nang to HCMC. On May 12, they followed Le’s car to an apartment in District 2. When they were on the Thoi Dai Bridge, Phot ran his motorbike into Le’s car, causing a ruckus. The group intended to wait until Le got off the car to kidnap him, but Le simply drove away.
Five days later, the group learned that Le’s family was traveling from Bao Loc in the Central Highlands to HCMC. They used cars to reach Dau Giay Town in Dong Nai in the middle and intercepted Le’s.
Le and a brother-in-law were threatened with a fake gun when they got out of the car. The group put Le’s wife and children onto another car, threatening them with a syringe tinged with what they said was HIV contaminated blood (actually red ink). They forced Le to disclose the password into his cryptocurrency digital wallet.
Throughout the two hours of traveling back to HCMC, the group beat Le and forced him to call his brother to transfer 1,000 bitcoins. Le however screamed during the conversation, informing his brother that all was not okay.
The group dropped Le and his family by the side of a road in District 2, taking with them phones and cameras to destroy the evidence. The family later reported the matter to the police.
An investigation revealed that 168 bitcoins worth around VND37 billion, and some other properties worth around VND45 million, were stolen.
The culprits were arrested in June. A trial date has not been set.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FETCHED ARTICLE 1  [RAW EXTRACT — NOT YET TRIMMED]
  !! This is the whole page as extracted. It still contains site furniture,
  !! and may contain teaser headlines for UNRELATED cases. Trim on read-through.
  !! Do not quote from it without checking the passage belongs to this case.
  Source     e.vnexpress.net
  URL        https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/hcmc-cops-charged-with-1-6-mln-bitcoin-robbery-4393892.html
  Field      url
  Retrieved  2026-09-05T12:45:25+00:00 via raw HTTP retrieval, deterministic extraction (HTTP 200)
  Language   unknown
  Kept       paragraphs ALL 74 paragraphs, untrimmed
  Length     4,813 chars
  Integrity  sha256 dffb5895f095d23ca2d274110f2b1f4fa8b72e58fe23d152faec261cebb41a7c
  Trimmed    NOT TRIMMED. Full page extract; trim on read-through.
  Caveat     retrieved from a live page on the date above. Unlike text copied
             from the spreadsheet, there is no second copy to hash it against.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ORIGINAL (unknown, verbatim as retrieved)

Policemen orchestrate $1.6 mln Bitcoin robbery in HCMC - VnExpress International

Politics 

Education 

Environment 

Traffic 

Crime 

Brainteaser

DataSpeaks 

Property 

Billionaires 

Markets 

Companies 

Economy 

Money 

Quiz

Tech news 

Enterprises 

Personalities 

Vietnam innovation 

Challenge hub

Trend 

Arts 

Celebrities 

Vogue 

Love 

Wellness

Football 

Boxing 

Marathon 

Tennis 

Other sports 

Trivia

© Copyright 1997 VnExpress.net. All rights reserved.

News
Politics
Education
Environment
Traffic
Crime
Brainteaser

1.

World's second most visited country attracts record 11.5 million tourists in July

2.

Malaysia's richest man Robert Kuok's grandson officially takes over as PPB Group managing director

3.

Malaysian billionaire king's son's plan to sell prime Singapore land complicated by $1.6B tax

4.

World's biggest F&B chain Mixue closes 89 overseas stores, many in Vietnam, Indonesia

5.

Southeast Asia's second-richest nation eyes $493M in tourism revenue next year

6.

Once world's busiest international hub, Dubai airport sees first-half passenger traffic fall more than 30%

7.

Southeast Asia’s richest man Pham Nhat Vuong rises to 54th wealthiest globally

8.

China's top Olympic scorer is out of Basketball World Cup after her passport was lost in mail

9.

British man becomes overnight millionaire after recovering lost Bitcoin after 12 years

10.

6 health benefits of eating eggs every day

HCMC cops charged with $1.6 mln bitcoin robbery

By Quoc Thang November 24, 2021 | 02:30 am PT 

Get VnExpress first in Google Search


See more of the news you trust. Make VnExpress a preferred source to prioritise our updates in your Google search results

Members of a group that orchestrated a bitcoin robbery in HCMC in May 2020. Photo courtesy of the police

Two police officers and their accomplices in HCMC have been charged with orchestrating a fake accident and stealing VND37 billion ($1.63 million) worth of bitcoins from a businessman.

Police officers Nguyen Quoc Dung, 40, and Nguyen Anh Tuan, 28, businessman Ho Ngoc Tai, 32, and 14 others face robbery charges in court, prosecutors said Tuesday. The offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Businessmen Tai and others were bitcoin investors in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. They engaged in transactions with a man named Le, another businessman in HCMC.

In 2018, Tai and an accomplice, 38-year-old Tran Ngoc Hoang, sold 1,000 bitcoins worth around VND100 billion and used the money to buy other cryptocurrencies, but ended up losing their investment. Tai’s group believed it was Le’s business advice that was responsible for their loss, so they plotted to steal his bitcoins.

Tai hired a private investigator for VND25 million to find Le. Then he enlisted the help of 36-year-old Trinh Tuan Anh, another cryptocurrency businessman, and police officers Nguyen Quoc Dung and Nguyen Anh Tuan.

Tai sent Le’s personal info and pictures of his car to the group, as well as VND50 million as rewards for finding him. Mai Xuan Phot, a detective hired by Tai, illegally used various surveillance technologies to find Le and map his family’s routines.

On May 11, 2020, Tai and some of his friends traveled from Da Nang to HCMC. On May 12, they followed Le’s car to an apartment in District 2. When they were on the Thoi Dai Bridge, Phot ran his motorbike into Le’s car, causing a ruckus. The group intended to wait until Le got off the car to kidnap him, but Le simply drove away.

Five days later, the group learned that Le’s family was traveling from Bao Loc in the Central Highlands to HCMC. They used cars to reach Dau Giay Town in Dong Nai in the middle and intercepted Le’s.

Le and a brother-in-law were threatened with a fake gun when they got out of the car. The group put Le’s wife and children onto another car, threatening them with a syringe tinged with what they said was HIV contaminated blood (actually red ink). They forced Le to disclose the password into his cryptocurrency digital wallet.

Throughout the two hours of traveling back to HCMC, the group beat Le and forced him to call his brother to transfer 1,000 bitcoins. Le however screamed during the conversation, informing his brother that all was not okay.

The group dropped Le and his family by the side of a road in District 2, taking with them phones and cameras to destroy the evidence. The family later reported the matter to the police.

An investigation revealed that 168 bitcoins worth around VND37 billion, and some other properties worth around VND45 million, were stolen.

The culprits were arrested in June. A trial date has not been set.

Get VnExpress first in Google Search


See more of the news you trust. Make VnExpress a preferred source to prioritise our updates in your Google search results

================================================================================================
generated from attacks-export-Gart-website.json + reported_K&R  |  case 279
================================================================================================
