After receiving complaints from many Vietnamese residents about The3Mien.com, police contacted a representative of the Westminster money-wire company. A computer glitch was blamed for funds failing to be sent to Vietnam and the business having to temporarily close its doors. Patrons were instructed to return last Wednesday for The3Mien.com reopening.
They did. The joint was still closed. Westminster detectives now believe customers were duped.
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Cops are now reaching out to the public in search of other victims–and more clues as to who was behind the company and where everyone's money is.
“So far, approximately 20 Vietnamese citizens have come to the Westminster Police Department to file theft reports, claiming that a money-wire business failed to wire the money to their intended recipients,” reads a statement from Van Woodson, the police department's public information officer.
They gave money ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 to a worker at The3Mien.com, 9070 Bolsa Ave., Westminster, and directed that their money be wired to recipients in Vietnam.
Each was given receipts for the transactions, but they soon learned their money was never wired. They started coming into WPD, one by one, after returning to The3Mien.com and discovering it was closed.
That's when police intervened the first time and received the assurances it was all being taken care of.
“Investigators now believe that the operators of this money-wire business do not intend to ever reopen,” states Woodman's message. “WPD detectives believe that the operators of The3Mien.com were never intent on wiring any of the victims' money to Vietnam. Detectives have now opened grand theft investigation.”
Detectives ask anyone else who was hit with the money-wire scam to contact them and bring as much documentation from the transaction with The3Mien.com as possible. Detective Brian Marlow at (714) 548-3741 is the man to call.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.