29-year-old arrested for attempting to travel to Vietnam to work in fraudulent crypto investment scheme

The incident took place on Monday at 12.10 am, said police officers. Representational pic

The Sahar Police arrested a 29-year-old man and detained two others at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport for allegedly attempting to travel from India to Vietnam for employment using tourist visas. During the investigation, the police discovered that all the three were heading to Vietnam allegedly to work in a ‘chatting scam' network, which involved defrauding citizens from the United States, Canada, and Australia under the pretext of cryptocurrency investments.

The accused, Parthkumar Ajay Chauhan, and the two detained individuals are residents of Surat, Gujarat. According to the police, Chauhan had previously worked in a similar chat scam and planned to take his two friends to Vietnam, offering them a salary of Rs 60,000-70,000 per month.

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The incident took place on Monday at 12.10 am, said police officers. The passengers had arrived at the airport to board flight VJ-884 from India to Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), with a connecting flight to Vientiane (Laos).

"Immigration officer Deepchand Singh, who was deployed at the airport, became suspicious of the group. He stopped them and inquired about their reason for traveling to Vietnam. They claimed they were going for job opportunities. Although they had valid tourist visas, their responses were unclear. So officer Singh referred the case to his senior officers. During interrogation, they admitted they were traveling for employment purposes in Vietnam on tourist visas," said a police officer.

In their first information report (FIR), the police mentioned that their probe revealed that Chauhan had allegedly worked in Vietnam from December 15, 2022, to February 23, 2023, through an agent based in Dubai. His was involved in a chat scam, which targeted citizens from the US, Canada, and Australia. The fraudsters would contact the victims and convince them to invest in cryptocurrency, only to defraud them later.

The police are probing all the possible links of this job racket now.

"We have arrested Parthkumar Chauhan for allegedly attempting to travel to Vietnam for employment on a tourist visa. We suspect his involvement in a chat scam that defrauds citizens of the US, Canada, and Australia by encouraging them to invest in cryptocurrency. Our investigation also found that Chauhan had travelled to Vietnam twice before. Although he has no prior criminal record, he admitted to working in Vietnam earlier in some chatting job. He was taking two youths with him for similar jobs, and all three are residents of Surat. We didn't allow the other two passengers to travel and served them notice to present for the investigation," Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Maneesh Kalwaniya said.