More than 3,000 investors fell into the trap of the Wingstep and Naga Kingdom projects, arresting 3 suspects.

Since 2022, the group has defrauded and raised an amount of up to 7.86 million USD (approximately 200 billion VND) from more than 3,000 accounts of individual investors.

On August 21, the Hanoi Police informed: The Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department, in coordination with the Criminal Police Department, has just dismantled a network that issued and called for investments in illegal cryptocurrency projects.

Among those arrested, prominent was Dang Quoc Thang (SN 1986, residing in Hanoi ), the founder of Maxx Group. This company was used by Thang to promote unauthorized cryptocurrency projects, including two main projects: Wingstep and Game Naga Kingdom. Thang directly benefited from 5% to 50% of the total funds raised from each project. Under Thang's authority was Ngo Khac Trung (SN 1991, from Thanh Hoa ), Director of Maxx Group Vietnam Co., Ltd., responsible for media communication and attracting more participants.

From left to right: Nguyễn Thành Lộc, Đặng Quốc Thắng, Ngô Khắc TrungWith the Wingstep project, investors download the application from the website "moiza.io", deposit cryptocurrency BUSD (1 BUSD = 1 USD) to purchase NFT shoes priced from 100–1,200 USD. After that, users open the application to walk or run to earn rewards in WST, then convert it back to BUSD. Thắng introduces this as a South Korean technology project with long-term profits, while establishing a multi-tier commission model (5% for F1, 3% for F2). In just a few months, about 50 investors contributed to 300,000 USD (more than 7.2 billion VND). However, by August 2022, the system lost liquidity, and all capital was seized.

Simultaneously, Thắng and Nguyễn Thành Lộc (SN 1997, Ninh Bình) promote the blockchain game project Naga Kingdom. Participants must purchase character NFTs such as Monkey, Chicken, Dog, Pig… priced from several dozen to hundreds of millions of đồng (NFT Pig is priced at up to 400 million đồng). Investors are promised a profit of 5–8% per month and an additional 10% commission for referring new people (5% F1, 3% F2, 2% F3). The project quickly attracted 20 investors, with an amount of about 60,000 USD (1.5 billion đồng). However, just after 3 months, the game ceased operations, leaving investors empty-handed.

Working with the police, the suspects admitted that the projects were not licensed in Vietnam. Their goal was simply to attract capital in a short time and then misappropriate assets. As of August 1, the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Hanoi Police had issued a decision to prosecute the case, prosecute the accused, and temporarily detain Đặng Quốc Thắng, Nguyễn Thành Lộc, and Ngô Khắc Trung for the crime of "using computer networks, telecommunications networks, and electronic means to misappropriate assets."

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