Notary arrested in connection with fraud case involving over 15.7 billion VND.
On November 10th, the investigative police agency initiated a criminal case, charged and temporarily detained Nguyen Duy Thuc, a notary public (born in 1972), for investigation into the crime of "Negligence causing serious consequences".
Previously, the Police Investigation Agency (PC01) of Ho Chi Minh City Police received the complaint.report a crimeMr. HND accused a notary public of misconduct in performing their assigned duties, causing Mr. D a loss of 15.7 billion VND.
Investigations revealed that plot number 706, map sheet number 2 (currently plots number 1 and 2, map sheet 96/BĐDC 2001) in Ward 5, Go Vap District, is registered under the name of Ms. D.TT. On January 9, 2018, Ms. D.TT. signed a deposit contract to sell the aforementioned plot of land to three individuals who jointly invested in its purchase.
However, because the land plot was subject to a dispute over a shared access road with surrounding households, after signing the deposit contract, all three agreed to entrust Trinh Truong Giang (born in 1971, residing in Tan Phu District) with the service contract: "Negotiating to resolve the access road dispute with surrounding households; contacting the competent authority to submit documents and procedures for transferring ownership of the land plot to the three buyers."
Upon receiving the original land ownership documents from Ms. D.T.T., Trinh Truong Giang did not perform the services as agreed but instead gave the documents to Tran Thanh Hai (born in 1983, residing in District 12) for safekeeping. Trinh Truong Giang, having known Mr. HND previously, approached him, proposed, and received Mr. D's agreement to purchase the land for 18.5 billion VND. Mr. D then paid the seller, Tran Thanh Hai, 15.7 billion VND.
On October 3, 2018, Mrs. TTTT (wife of Mr. HND) signed a handwritten contract for the sale of the land plot with Tran Thanh Hai, while Trinh Truong Giang was the witness to the contract.
Although Ms. D.TT did not sign a power of attorney contract with Mr. HND, notary Nguyen Duy Thuc violated the regulations of the Notarial Law by not requiring the person being notarized to sign or affix their fingerprint in the presence of the notary, and by not checking the documents. As a result, he did not detect the violation but still proceeded with the notarization, leading to Trinh Truong Giang and Tran Thanh Hai embezzling 15.7 billion VND from Mr. HND.
Following the investigation, the Ho Chi Minh City Police Investigation Agency initiated a criminal case and indicted Trinh Truong Giang and Tran Thanh Hai for "Fraudulent appropriation of property". Based on the collected documents and evidence, the Police Investigation Agency also indicted Nguyen Duy Thuc for "Negligence causing serious consequences".
The case is currently under investigation to clarify the actions of the individuals involved in order to handle the matter according to regulations.
