PSF prosecutes two foreigners for using high technology to steal money

According to the case files, from February 2013 to August 2015, Joel David Richards repeatedly entered Vietnam and stayed in Danang. On August 2015, Joel David Richards was guided by three Bulgarian suspects Georgi, Stanislav, Mavror to use fake credit cards to withdraw cash from local ATMs.

When Joel David Richards had yet to commit theft, the three Bulgarians had been arrested by the Quang Nam Provincial Police and were then deported for their committing acts of illegal appropriation of property in other cases.

But after returning to Bulgaria, Georgi still kept in touch with Joel David Richards and introduced him to Hristov Lavor – another Bulgarian national in Vietnam. They continued to steal data of card holders at ATMs and then made fake credit cards to draw money from ATMs.

Joel David Richards, aged 25, UK citizen, and Rudy Manoel Dass, aged 34, Netherlands citizen, who were accused of using computer and telecommunication network, the Internet and digital tools to illegally appropriate banks’ property.

After guiding Joel to install skimming devices, camera in ATMs as well as techniques to make fake ATM cards, Hristov and Joel travelled to Hoi An city (Quang Nam), stole account information from ATMs there and  made 49 fake ATM cards before returning to Danang to draft a good deal of cash from various ATM in the city.On September 8th 2015, Hristov came to Danang with various rough-shaped ATM cards, 7 skimming devices, 2 mini cameras with the aim of stealing the account information and passwords of card holders while they were making transactions at ATMs. They would save the stolen information in a laptop and then use some equipment to make fake credit cards with the copied data.

To avoid being detected, Hristov and Joel moved to Hue City to replay the game. On December 7th 2015, Hristov returned to Bulgaria but Joel David Richards lured Manoel Rudy Dass from Netherlands to steal money by using high technology in Da Nang, Nha Trang. They were eventually arrested by the Khanh Hoa Provincial Police in mid December 2015.

According to the collected evidence and results of the verification of photos and information provided by the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), SeABank Danang & Hue branches, and transaction traces, along with the confessions of Joel and Rudy, the investigation agency of the  Khanh Hoa Provincial Police affirmed that from November 25th to December 6th 2015, Joel used high technology to steal nearly VND 310 million while Rudy stole VND 14 million.

While Joel and Rudy just finished stealing cash from a BIDV ATM in Nha Trang before they were caught in red by local police with several equipments and criminal tools.

Related to the case are also Georgi and Hristo, of nationality Bulgarian, but those two have already left Vietnam so the investigation agency of the Khanh Hoa Provincial Police has excluded them from the above case and will open another case when having enough conditions.