Life sentence for female bank officer who set 'contract trap', defrauded 47 billion VND

Fall into the trap of believing superiors

Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga (born 1984) was born into a well-educated family in Ha Huy Tap ward, Vinh city (Nghe An). Graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics with honors, and with a good appearance, Kieu Nga was recruited to a large and famous bank in the area.

Working since 2006, with her efforts, Nga was appointed deputy head of retail customer management at a branch of a large bank in Nghe An. Taking on the above position, Nga should have tried to promote what she had learned, however, taking advantage of being loved and trusted by many people, Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga "magically" created a series of loan applications with the purpose of making a profit.

The first scams that Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga carried out occurred in 2022. The first group of people that Nga targeted were none other than her colleagues who used to work under her.

At the end of December 2022, Nga learned that Ms. MHD (residing in Vinh Tan ward, Vinh city), who used to be her subordinate, had just sold land and had a large sum of money. To borrow 7 billion VND, Nga used the excuse of proving her financial status and confirming the balance for the company under her husband's name.

Trusting her boss, Ms. D. spent all the money from selling the land to her boss. Not only that, Ms. D. also borrowed from friends and relatives and transferred it to the bank account that Nga had designated. The money that was supposed to prove the company's financial status was used by Nga to pay off personal debts.

Seeing that the "fraud" job was going well, Nga tried to approach Ms. NTA (residing in Hung Dung ward, Vinh city), who was also an employee in Nga's department. Because in addition to their relationship as colleagues, Nga and Ms. A. had a close relationship between their families and parents. Kieu Nga knew that Ms. A.'s husband and father-in-law had borrowed money and had mortgaged assets at the bank, so she made up a story about "reversing the contract" and extending the loans to avoid affecting the department's targets.

Trusting what Kieu Nga said, Ms. A. persuaded her father-in-law to sign a loan application for 7 billion VND, and her husband borrowed an additional 9.5 billion VND. However, only when the money was nowhere to be found and the loan application was due did Ms. A. realize that she had fallen into a "contract reversal" trap. In total, Nga appropriated 16.5 billion VND from Ms. A's family - people who considered Nga a close family member.

4 victims were scammed out of 47 billion VND

Not stopping at the agency, Nga continued to expand the "fraud ring" to her customers. At that time, Nga was still holding the position of deputy head of the retail customer management department, so Nga herself knew many customers. Among them, Ms. DTTL (residing in Hung Phuc ward, Vinh city) was a customer who regularly borrowed and deposited money at the bank.

In 2022, Nga repeatedly called and texted Ms. L. to borrow money under the pretext of reversing bank contracts for customers, with a promise of interest rates of up to 1,500 VND/million VND/day. Because of trust in her professional position as well as her long-standing relationship, Ms. L. agreed in the hope of earning a little more profit. To build her reputation, Nga transferred the money back in full and on time for the first few times she borrowed money, making Ms. L. very secure.

However, from mid-December 2022 to January 2023, when there were many debts to pay, Nga continued to borrow money from Ms. L. under the same excuse, but did not use it to "reverse the contract" as she had said, but used it to pay off personal debts. After many times of urging, Nga only returned Ms. L. 3 billion VND, and the remaining 24 billion VND was used for personal purposes. Realizing that Nga had shown signs of financial irregularities and continuously made excuses to delay paying the debt, Ms. L. wrote a complaint to the authorities.

From the complaint with full evidence, on August 2, 2023, Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga was arrested by the police.detentionto investigate the behavior of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

According to the initial statements of the former deputy customer management manager, in 2022, he participated in business investments but suffered losses and fell into debt. Because some debts were due, Nga thought of borrowing money from one person to pay another.

It is known that, through initial investigation, from December 2022 to July 2023, Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga appropriated from 4 victims a total amount of more than 47 billion VND. In which, the largest person was up to 24 billion VND.

When trust is misplaced

It has been nearly 2 years since Ms. MHD filed a complaint against Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga to the authorities, but the amount she received back was only 200 million VND. It is known that the 7 billion VND that Ms. D. transferred to Nga was not only the entire amount of money from selling the family's land, but also the savings of Ms. D's relatives. Just because she trusted her sister, who was both a long-time colleague and a superior, Ms. D. invested all her assets. "Now I just hope to get back some part to pay my relatives, just because of misplaced trust, now my family is in debt again," Ms. D. shared.

The trial of defendant Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga was held at the end of April 2025. At the trial, the defendant bowed her head and admitted all her actions. When asked by the panel of judges about the amount of money Nga had appropriated, Nga said that because she had invested in "surfing" real estate in Phu Quoc and was scammed out of tens of billions of dong, she had the idea of ​​making loan applications to appropriate it. However, the defendant did not have any documents to prove the above investment process. Before the panel of judges, Nga apologized to the victims and the old agency where she was once trusted with important responsibilities.

During the investigation, Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga said that she had been examined at Nghe An Psychiatric Hospital. However, the assessment concluded that Nga had mild depression but was capable of perceiving and controlling her behavior.

The jury sentenced Nguyen Thi Kieu Nga to life in prison for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property”. In addition, the court required the defendant to return the entire amount of money he had misappropriated.