Two students in Ho Chi Minh City were threatened and forced into self-isolation in hotel rooms after receiving calls from criminals impersonating police officers. Their families were extorted for 600 million VND.

An 18-year-old student told her mother she was going out for work and then lost contact. Later, her family received messages saying she had been kidnapped and demanding a ransom, threatening to sell her to Cambodia if they didn't comply.

A Hanoi university student was tricked into staging her own kidnapping after receiving a call from scammers posing as police officers. The perpetrators instructed her to inflict superficial injuries on herself and demand a 370 million VND ransom from her family, threatening to "cut off her fingers" otherwise.