Viral TikTok Videos Expose the ‘HNL Swindler’ as Dental Practices and Residents Allegedly Lose Tens of Thousands
What started as a minor dispute over a dog’s gourmet diet of blueberries and coconut water has snowballed into a multi-state online outcry exposing a trail of alleged financial deception.
For months, 32-year-old Quan “David” Hoang Vu has been living in Kakaʻako luxury condos in Honolulu. But as civilbeat.org reported, a series of viral TikTok videos posted by a former romantic partner have unraveled his polished facade, connecting dots between Hawaii and Southern California for business owners who say they were defrauded out of tens of thousands of dollars.
The digital reckoning began when Honolulu resident Dominique Bird agreed to dog-sit Cupcake, Vu’s dog, while Vu claimed he was taking a business trip to California. Bird fronted the money for the dog’s high-end provisions. When Vu extended his trip from one week to more than three and later revealed he had been involved with someone else upon his return, the relationship fractured over a minor $75 reimbursement.
Frustrated, Bird ran a background check on Vu. What she found transformed a personal breakup into a public warning.
From Tinder to Employment: How Dental Offices Were Targeted
Bird discovered that Vu was a fugitive with outstanding arrest warrants in Orange County, California, alongside past charges in Virginia and an indecent exposure charge in Honolulu. She published a TikTok video detailing her findings to warn other users on Tinder. To her surprise, the video went viral, creating an interstate network of victims who dubbed him “The HNL Swindler,” a nod to the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler.”
Among those watching was Dr. Monique Sison-Aweau, an Orange County dentist. She recognized Vu as a job applicant who had responded to an Indeed ad for an office manager in March 2025. After an in-person interview and a half-day working trial, Sison-Aweau extended a job offer contingent on a background check, which Vu signed an employment letter for but ultimately refused to complete. Shortly afterward, the practice noticed unauthorized charges totaling $18,000 on their checking account. Sison-Aweau and her husband, Jamison Aweau, filed a police report after learning Vu allegedly used routing and account numbers from a check given to him for the working interview to pay off an American Express card. Orange County court records show Vu faces grand theft and identity theft charges in that case.
A similar playbook allegedly unfolded in Honolulu. Dr. Kyrell Wright, a dentist with offices in Kaimukī and Kalihi, hired Vu as an office manager in May 2025. Wright’s operations manager, Donni Ching, stated that Vu allegedly offered patients discounts for cash payments, pocketed the cash, and scrubbed the procedures from medical records. Wright estimates Vu embezzled at least $80,000 from the practice before being fired in October 2025.
A Honolulu medical office also reported Vu to the police for stealing a laptop.
Vu Denies Theft Allegations and Court Cases
When contacted by reporters, Vu strongly denied the allegations. In a series of text messages and phone calls, he called the story “completely wrong” and asserted that he did not know either of the dentists accusing him of theft. He claimed he had fully reimbursed Bird for the dog food and maintained that a California warrant from 2021 had been cleared. Regarding the Orange County grand theft case, Vu initially claimed he had never heard of the case, later shifting his stance to claim that the defendant was an entirely different person decades older who shared his exact name—despite court records matching his birth year.
Meanwhile, victims have expressed frustration with the pace of law enforcement action. A spokesperson for the Honolulu Police Department stated that the department can neither confirm nor deny whether an individual is under investigation if no arrest has been made.
Though Bird took down her viral TikTok videos after receiving threats of legal action, her inbox continues to buzz with messages from individuals who claim they were misled by Vu. As court records classify Vu as a fugitive in California, he remains visible in Honolulu, walking his dog near his Kakaʻako residence while the financial and legal fallout continues to unfold across two states.
