Japanese police said Tuesday that they have arrested a 34-year-old Vietnamese woman on suspicion of money laundering via voice phishing,?a tactic where fraudsters trick their victims into?sharing sensitive financial information.
According to the National Police Agency (NPA), Nguyen Thi Huaon, who lives in Tokyo, has been charged with violating the organized crime law.
Huaon is suspected of laundering ?30 million ($189,000) stolen through voice phishing in March 2025. She is also believed to have been involved in laundering tens of millions of yen in other cases through scam and money laundering groups.
The NPA’s cyber investigation squad analyzed losses totaling about ?2.9 billion from around 80 voice phishing cases between October 2024 and April 2025,?and found that about ?1.5 billion of the money had been transferred to Vietnam.
The NPA squad then detected Huaon’s involvement in the money transfer by analyzing smartphone data seized in a separate case involving Vietnamese money mules.
According to investigative sources, the scam group posed as financial institutions and used automated phone calls notifying companies of internet banking service renewals. The group then sent emails with links to fake websites to those who responded, instructing them to enter IDs and passwords on the websites?in order to steal their information.
Funds stolen through the scheme were transferred to an account of the money laundering group in Vietnam, which Huaon introduced to the scam group. After passing through several other accounts, the funds were withdrawn from ATMs in Japan by Vietnamese money mules and returned to the scam group, including in the form of crypto assets. She and the money laundering group received a share of the stolen funds as compensation.
Given that the funds were withdrawn within a few hours after being stolen, the NPA believes that Huaon played a key role in avoiding account freezes.
Prefectural police departments in Saitama, Yamagata, Ibaraki, Gunma and Chiba have set up a joint investigative taskforce?regarding voice phishing cases.
Vietnamese media reported Sunday that local authorities?have charged seven people over the case, based on cooperation among Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security, Vietnamese police and the NPA.
The investigation remains ongoing as authorities work to identify others involved in the network and clarify the full scope of the alleged crimes, the reports said.
The coordinated exchange of operational intelligence and cross-border electronic data enabled investigators to trace individual on-chain transactions, follow the movement of funds and identify key links in the network, the reports said, citing the Vietnamese ministry.
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