Popularizing blockchain to fight cyber fraud
On December 18, the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department coordinated with the Vietnam Blockchain Association (VBA) to organize a seminar on "Improving capacity to prevent and combat financial crimes in cyberspace".
In his opening speech, Colonel Le Quang Dao, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Police, emphasized that the seminar was organized to better identify the methods and tricks of criminals in the fields of finance and high technology, thereby clearly identifying the causes and trends of this type of crime, and providing recommendations and preventive measures for people and businesses.
To solve the problem of financial fraud in cyberspace, Mr. Phan Duc Trung, Permanent Vice President of VBA proposed that it is necessary to quickly popularize knowledge about blockchain and AI to all community members to minimize fraud, especially for vulnerable people (elderly people, children, women...).
For the force responsible for ensuring security and social order, which are the police agencies, it is necessary to strengthen internal training and improve professional knowledge to grasp and master advanced technologies, easily trace and prevent fraudulent acts.
At the same time, coordinate with international units, globally reputable data providers, and on-chain tracing programs such as ChainTracer to optimize the effectiveness of investigation, identification, and prevention of illegal transactions.
Strict management to prevent money laundering and cross-border crimes
Delegates and experts spent a lot of time discussing the management mechanism and actions of state agencies towards cryptocurrency exchanges, focusing on preventing and combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other illegal acts.
Mr. Phan Duc Trung said that according to Chainalysis, in 2024, the amount of illegally laundered cryptocurrencies will also reach over 5 billion USD, posing an urgent requirement for management agencies to strengthen supervision and management.
The VBA representative also emphasized that in Vietnam, many units with unknown information continuously organize secret seminars, taking advantage of the images of influential figures to mobilize capital from the community.
Many reports from users sent to ChainTracer said they were scammed through sending and depositing money to unknown exchange platforms and wallets.
Trading floors continuously promote, market, and communicate publicly on a large scale, even though they are not licensed to operate in Vietnam, focusing on easily lured customer groups such as students and young people.
A representative of the Investigation Police Agency (PC01) under the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department said that the unit has handled and investigated many cases related to cryptocurrencies, money laundering, fraud, gambling in cyberspace, buying and selling cryptocurrencies on exchanges, e-wallets, etc. but encountered difficulties in identifying money sources and tracing money flows.
PC01 representative raised the issue of how to coordinate between investigation agencies and collect documents in accordance with legal regulations to be able to prosecute crimes.
Answering this question, Mr. Tran Huyen Dinh, Head of ChainTracer program, VBA, said that transactions on blockchain are not anonymous as people mistakenly think, in fact they are only semi-anonymous, tracing money flow is very simple.
Identifying wallet addresses and transaction addresses is not necessary, instead, authorities can trace the flow of money when transferring from cryptocurrency wallets to transactions on traditional financial platforms.
