Vietnamese woman arrested for laundering money from voice phishing victims - International investigation exposes money laundering group, National Police Agency

On the 13th, the National Police Agency's Cyber ​​Special Investigation Division and the Joint Investigation Headquarters of the Saitama Prefectural Police announced that they had arrested a 34-year-old Vietnamese woman on suspicion of violating the Organized Crime Punishment Act (concealing criminal proceeds) for laundering money from ``voice phishing,'' a scam in which bank account information is stolen through telephone calls pretending to be from financial institutions. Based on information provided by Japan, Vietnamese authorities have busted seven members of a money laundering group with connections to women.

According to the National Police Agency, the man arrested was unemployed Nguyen Tay Phuong, a resident of Tokyo. He was indicted on the same crime and other charges, and is said to have laundered a total of 30 million yen in voice phishing damage in March 2025. He is suspected of acting as an intermediary between a group of fraud perpetrators and a money laundering group, and also being involved in laundering tens of millions of yen.

The fraud group pretends to be a financial institution and makes an automated call on an international call saying, ``It's time to update your online banking,'' and then sends a link to a fake homepage via email to companies that respond. An unauthorized remittance was made to an account managed using the ID and password entered.

The stolen funds were transferred to the account of a Vietnamese money laundering group introduced by Huong. The Vietnamese child eventually made withdrawals from ATMs in Japan via multiple accounts, and the money was returned to the fraud group in the form of crypto assets.

The funds were withdrawn within hours of the fraudulent transfer, and the agency believes that Phuong, who acted as an intermediary, played an important role in avoiding the account being frozen. The defendant and the money laundering group received a few percent of the fraudulent proceeds as compensation.