14 years in prison for the long slide of a female teacher in the mountainous region of Nghe An

Vi Thi Hoa (born in 1972, residing in Dinh Son commune, Anh Son district, Nghe An) was a former teacher at Dinh Son Secondary School. Instead of improving her expertise and teaching skills, Vi Thi Hoa devoted herself to her desire to get rich. That was in 2012, when the multi-level marketing whirlwind swept into the mountainous district of Anh Son.

When the multi-level marketing scheme went into decline, Hoa went bankrupt due to holding a large amount of goods and her "superior" ran away and disappeared.

Desperate, Hoa came up with the idea of ​​defrauding and appropriating property to make up for the money she invested in MLM. Vi Thi Hoa introduced herself as the Chairman of the People's Committee of Ky Son district, the wife of the Chairman of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, the Chief of Office of the People's Committee of Nghe An province and the Director of the Department of Home Affairs of Nghe An to deceive families with children who were looking for jobs.

Vi Thi Hoa at the trial. Photo: Nhu Binh

Hoa "bragged" that she could get jobs teaching, working as a nurse at local schools, and working at police schools. Thinking it was real, many people borrowed money and gave it to Hoa to help them get jobs.

With this trick, Vi Thi Hoa appropriated 163 million VND from Ms. Vi Thi L. (residing in Luc Da commune, Con Cuong), 100 million VND from Mr. Ngo Duc H. (residing in Quynh Lap commune, Hoang Mai town), 170 million VND from Mr. Nguyen Van T. (residing in Quynh Lap commune, Hoang Mai town), 30 million VND, Ms. Vi Thi N. (both residing in Luc Da commune, Con Cuong district) 60 million VND, Mr. Truong Tat T. (residing in Nghia Xuan commune, Quy Hop district) 160 million VND, Mr. Luong Van M. and Mr. Lo Thanh V. (residing in Ngoc Lam commune, Thanh Chuong district) 160 million VND, Mr. Luong Xuan T. (residing in Ngoc Lam commune, Thanh Chuong district) 180 million VND...

In particular, Hoa also "bragged" that she knew someone outside the Ministry of Public Security who could apply to be on the payroll of the industry to defraud Mr. Tran Kim An (residing in Phong Thinh commune, Thanh Chuong district) of 350 million VND.

After appropriating the money, Hoa used it to pay off previous debts from multi-level marketing and for personal expenses, then threw the victims' job applications into the Lam River to destroy them.

Seeing that Vi Thi Hoa did not fulfill her commitment, the people repeatedly urged her to return the money but Hoa refused to pay. Realizing that they had been deceived, the victims reported Vi Thi Hoa's actions to the police.

Although the police initiated a case, prosecuted the defendant and issued a house arrest warrant, on September 26, 2017, seeing signs of Vi Thi Hoa fleeing, the police issued an order to temporarily detain the female teacher to serve the investigation.

Authorities determined that Vi Thi Hoa had defrauded the victims of nearly 2 billion VND. After the incident was discovered, Hoa recovered 500 million VND for the victims. For the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property", Vi Thi Hoa was sentenced to 14 years in prison by the People's Court of Nghe An province, and was forced to compensate nearly 1.5 billion VND that she had defrauded from the victims.

Disagreeing with the sentence, the victims filed an appeal, requesting an increase in the penalty for Vi Thi Hoa. “Because I trusted Hoa, I borrowed money to help me find a job for my child. Unable to find a job, Hoa threw away the application and refused to pay back the money. I myself have a serious illness and now have to borrow money for treatment. Knowing that Hoa received an insurance payment, I went to beg her to pay me a portion for treatment, but Hoa said this was her hard-earned money so she refused to pay. If she refuses to return the money to us, we hope the court will increase the sentence for defendant Hoa,” one of Hoa’s victims said indignantly.

However, the panel of judges determined that the first instance had reviewed the case comprehensively, and that at the trial, the victims had not presented any new details, so there was no basis to consider increasing the sentence. The appellate panel rejected the appeal and upheld the first instance sentence of 14 years in prison for Vi Thi Hoa.