Life sentence for U50 man who pretended to be a rich overseas Vietnamese, 'stole' 12 billion from a tycoon in Vinh city
(Baonghean.vn) - At the trial, Dao Thi Mong Thuong (residing in Dong Thap province) still claimed that the above amount of money was only love expenses, and not the result of fraud by the defendant.
On the morning of May 10, after a lengthy deliberation, the People's Court of Nghe An province sentenced defendant Dao Thi Mong Thuong (born 1978), residing in Vinh Thoi commune, Lai Vung district, Dong Thap province, to life in prison for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".
According to the records, in mid-August 2019, Thuong joined a group on social media and became acquainted with Mr. NVH (from Vinh City, Nghe An). At that time, Mr. H. was a construction business owner and was living separately from his wife.
Seeing that this man was rich and kind, Thuong planned to take possession of his property by "deceiving him". During the texting process, Thuong introduced himself as Dao Ngoc Minh, 25 years old, Canadian citizen.
On Ngoc Minh's Facebook page, Thuong posted edited photos of herself when she was young, along with some online photos showing her checking in at famous places and wearing luxury branded items to show Mr. H. that Ngoc Minh's family was well-off.
Often started “attacking” to gain the other person’s trust. When seeing Mr. H. often doing charity work, Thuong used the excuse of being busy and unable to go with him, asked for his bank account number, and transferred 50 million VND to this man to help the unfortunate.
Impressed by the beautiful young girl with a kind heart, the tycoon gradually developed feelings. When the "prey" gradually fell into the love trap, Thuong created many Facebook accounts, pretending to be Ngoc Minh's relative and confiding in Mr. H. To avoid suspicion, in the beginning of their relationship, Thuong did not mention money, only talked about life, love...
About half a year later, when he saw that the love was “ripe”, Thuong began to plan to seize his lover’s property. At first, the woman lied that she wanted to borrow billions to invest in a project, even though her parents were well off, she did not ask for help because she wanted to be independent. At first, Mr. H. seemed suspicious and did not lend her money. But after many times of being persuaded by Thuong, this person agreed.
In addition, Thuong also repeatedly used the excuse that Ngoc Minh needed money to complete inheritance procedures, with the aim of luring Mr. H. to transfer money to Ngoc Minh through the accounts provided by Thuong, from which Thuong appropriated this money. With the above reason, Mr. H. transferred to Thuong 7 times with a total amount of 883 million VND.
Not only that, Thuong also pretended to be Ngoc Minh who was going to Italy and Hong Kong and was in dire need of money to process paperwork to go to Canada. Mr. H. transferred money to Ngoc Minh 20 times through Thuong with a total amount of nearly 4.9 billion VND.
From September 19, 2019 to April 27, 2022, Dao Thi Mong Thuong gave many reasons to commit fraud and appropriate property with the amount of money appropriated being nearly 12.3 billion VND.
At the first instance trial, Thuong did not admit to the accusation of fraud and misappropriation of property, claiming that the money was a “love expense” given by Mr. H. According to the defendant, Mr. H. and the defendant knew each other, met many times, and traveled together, not that they did not know each other as the victim claimed.
Usually, evidence is provided by Mr. H.'s text messages during money transfer transactions with the content "give, give to Ngoc Minh, give to Mong Thuong, give to beloved wife, give gifts..." to prove that Mr. H.'s money transfer was voluntary. However, the authorities have proven that Mr. H. wrote these money transfer contents at Thuong's request. This is Thuong's trick to prevent Mr. H. from reporting him as a fraud.
The panel of judges determined that because the defendant did not admit his actions, he was not entitled to any mitigating circumstances. Based on the results of the investigation and the assessment of the circumstances related to the case, the panel of judges sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property", and ordered the defendant to compensate the victim with more than 5.2 billion VND (after deducting the amount of compensation).
