Vietnam and the US have jointly investigated and forced three subjects to trick more than 7,000 people in the US to buy Covid-19 preventative hand sanitizer, with the total amount of nearly 1 million USD.

More than 7,000 people in 50 US states have ordered dry hand sanitizers and antibacterial wet towels from websites in Vietnam.

According to the victims' lawsuit, the defendants operated more than 300 websites with the intent of fraudulently selling scarce products during the pandemic.

On this basis, authorities in the city of Tampa, Florida began the investigation in March 2020.

After completing the investigation, Vietnam in mid-July arrested three defendants, Phan Dinh Thu, Tran Quoc Khanh and Nguyen Duy Toan, who were all Vietnamese citizens.

The US Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink's assessment that the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security's arrest of the suspects clearly demonstrated that the Vietnamese government is seriously fighting against Covid-19-related crimes.

"We are proud that the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and the US Department of Homeland Security Investigation are working together to investigate this very complicated cross-border scam," the Ambassador said.

According to the US Embassy in Vietnam, when suspecting a fraudulent transaction involving Covid-19, people should report to the US Federal Trade Commission via the hotline 1-877-FTC-HELP (1

Currently, the US is still the world's largest epidemic area, recording more than 5.6 million cases and more than 173,000 deaths.