I sold the identities of nearly 200 million people as a black hat hacker. Now I fight scam compounds. Ask me anything on Wednesday, August 26th at 12 PM ET
Hi PWN Community, I'm Hieu Minh Ngo, also known as Hieupc, a cybersecurity specialist from Vietnam and a former black hat hacker. I started hacking as a teenager.
By my early twenties I was running identity theft services that sold the stolen personal data of nearly 200 million people: names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, everything needed to steal an identity.
In 2013 the US Secret Service lured me to Guam with a fake data deal and arrested me the moment I stepped off the plane. I was facing more than 40 years in federal prison, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 13 years.
I served more than 7 years and was deported back to Vietnam in 2020. I decided to spend my second chance fighting the crime I once committed. I worked as a security expert at Vietnam's National Cyber Security Center and founded Chong Lua Dao ("Scam Fighters"), a non-profit that protects people from online scams.
Most recently, my team collaborated with Infoblox on an investigation that traced an Android banking trojan to the K99 Triumph City scam compound in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.
We helped rescue trafficking victims who were forced to run scams inside the compound, and the evidence they brought out let us connect specific malware to a physical scam operation for the first time.
My story and work have been documented in a few places:
- Darknet Diaries, Episode 162: Hieu: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/162/
- KrebsOnSecurity, "Confessions of an ID Theft Kingpin": https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/08/confessions-of-an-id-theft-kingpin-part-i/
- Infoblox, "Scams, Slaves, and Malware-as-a-Service" (the K99 Triumph City investigation): https://www.infoblox.com/blog/threat-intelligence/scams-slaves-and-malware-as-a-service-tracking-a-trojan-to-cambodias-scam-centers/
- TIME, "'A Perfect Storm': How AI Is Transforming the Global Scam Industry": https://time.com/article/2026/04/07/-a-perfect-storm-how-ai-is-transforming-the-global-scam-industry/
I also speak regularly about my story, including a TEDx talk, "The Art of Thinking Like a Cybercriminal", and I post ongoing findings on X: https://x.com/HHieupc Ask me anything about:
- How the identity theft marketplace worked from the inside, and how data on 200 million people ended up for sale
- Getting lured to Guam by the Secret Service, my arrest, and 7 years in US federal prison
- Rebuilding a life and career in cybersecurity after prison and deportation
- The scam compound economy in Southeast Asia: forced labor, pig butchering, and how these operations really run
- The K99 Triumph City investigation and tracing malware to a physical compound
- Chong Lua Dao and how we protect everyday users from scams
- How scammers pick their victims and how you can protect yourself and your family
- Anything else on hacking, identity theft, and life on both sides of the line
I'll be here live on Wednesday, August 26th from 12 PM to 1 PM ET answering your questions in real time.
Feel free to leave questions in advance, and I'll get to them when I go live. Looking forward to your questions.