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Unfolding Stories
Notorious Vietnamese hacker turns government cyber agent
At the height of his career, Ngo Minh Hieu made a fortune stealing the personal data of millions of Americans. Now he has been recruited to hunt the kind of cyber criminal he once used to be.
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This photo taken on April 20, 2022 shows cybersecurity expert Ngo Minh Hieu reading a diary that he wrote while in prison in the US, in Ho Chi Minh City. (AFP/Nhac Nguyen)
A
t the height of his career, Vietnamese hacker Ngo Minh Hieu made a fortune stealing the personal data of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Now he has been recruited by his own authoritarian government to hunt, he says, the kind of cyber criminal he once used to be.
After serving seven years in US prisons for stealing some 200 million Americans' personal details, Hieu was sent back to Vietnam, which imposes some of the world's strictest curbs on online freedom.
Hieu says he has since turned his back on his criminal past.
"I fell to the bottom, now I am trying to climb up again," the 32-year-old told AFP.
"Though I don't earn much now, I have peace instead."
His transformation, however, is complicated.
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