Female police officer sentenced to life imprisonment for defrauding 22 billion VND.

(Baonghean.vn)- After a week of deliberation, on the afternoon of August 23, the People's Court of Nghe An province decided to sentence Tran Thi Ngoc Ha (born in 1980), a former police officer of Nghe An province, to life imprisonment for the crime of fraud and appropriation of property.

According to the case file,Tran Thi Ngoc Ha (born in 1980), a resident of Truong Thi ward, Vinh city (Nghe An province), is an officer of the Nghe An Provincial Police. She exploited the trust of friends and relatives to commit fraud and embezzle property. From June 2007 to October 2011, Ha created a facade of being a wealthy businesswoman, driving luxury cars, engaging in large-scale business, and owning numerous plots of land in Vinh city and Cua Lo town.

Tran Thi Ngoc Ha was taken away in a police van.

After gaining people's trust, Ha began borrowing money at high interest rates, using it to refinance bank loans, and buying land to borrow billions of dong from many people. To obtain money, Ha even resorted to fraudulent land sales, using one land use right certificate to sell to multiple people and mortgage it to banks, etc. With these tactics, in a short time, Ha defrauded nearly 24 billion dong from 13 victims. Many of them were Ha's relatives, friends, and colleagues; some were scammed out of a few hundred million dong, while others lost nearly 6 billion dong.

The total amount of money that Ha embezzled from the victims amounted to more than 22 billion VND.

On December 12, 2011, after officially going bankrupt and being demanded money by victims, Ha submitted a resignation letter and surrendered to the police. Ha confessed to using the embezzled money to buy land, pay off debts, and for personal expenses. However, at the police station, Ha could not prove where the land was purchased, who the debts were paid to, or when. The investigating agency determined that Ha had compensated the victims with over 2 billion VND and was still embezzling over 20 billion VND.

During the trial, many victims claimed that, while borrowing money, Ha's husband, Nguyen Truong Trung, had signed loan agreements three times with three different people, totaling over 7.2 billion VND, and requested that Trung be prosecuted for complicity. The investigating agency determined that Nguyen Truong Trung signed the civil contracts out of trust in his wife, with the intention of obtaining the loans, without knowing that Ha had already planned to embezzle the money. Therefore, there was insufficient basis to prosecute Nguyen Truong Trung.

Nevertheless, the court found that, although there was insufficient basis for criminal prosecution, Nguyen Truong Trung was still responsible for repaying the debt along with Ha for the amount that the couple had jointly signed a loan agreement for.

At the trial, the panel of judges also agreed with the People's Procuracy's view on the dispute between the Industrial and Commercial Bank - Nghe An Branch and the defendant Ha. According to the victim, Le Thi Hiep, representing An Khanh Co., Ltd., while working there, Ha borrowed the land title deed from Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Chau, residing in Nghi Hai Ward, Cua Lo Town, to have the company register it in its name and mortgage it to borrow 2 billion VND from the Industrial and Commercial Bank to repay Ms. Hiep's debt. The landowner, Ms. Nguyen Thi Chau, wrote a commitment and guaranteed the land title deed for An Khanh Company to borrow 2 billion VND from the bank. When the repayment deadline arrived, representatives of the Industrial and Commercial Bank repeatedly met with Ms. Chau and An Khanh Co., Ltd. to recover the capital, but without success. The representative of the procuracy argued that this was a civil dispute and should be tried in a separate case.

At noon on August 23, after being sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to pay over 20 billion VND in compensation to the victims, Tran Thi Ngoc Ha collapsed, unable to stand, and had to be helped into a police van by officers amidst the shouts and curses of the victims.

Nguyen Khoa