Arrested fake psychic couple, scammed 200 million VND from offering exorcism services
While counting money after performing a ritual to exorcise the family's spirit, Ly and her husband, a fake psychic, were raided by the police and caught red-handed with 200 million VND.
On November 3, the Investigation Police Agency of Phu My Town Police (Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province) announced that it had just issued a decision to prosecute and arrest Nguyen Thi Ly (48 years old, residing in My Xuan Ward, Phu My Town) and Tran Minh Hung (65 years old, from Ho Chi Minh City) for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".
According to the initial investigation, in April 2023, Nguyen Thi Ly and Tran Minh Hung got married and lived together in My Tan neighborhood, My Xuan ward, Phu My town. Since September 2023, although he did not have psychic abilities, Hung told Ly that he could see souls, bones, and exorcise spirits, etc.
Then, Ly went to the houses near where he lived to take pictures and showed them to Hung. From the pictures Ly gave, Hung "determined" which houses had bones, ghosts, and negative energy and told Ly to contact the owners and hire a good "master" to exorcise the evil spirits.
Because of fear and believing that Ly's threats were true, some people asked Ly to call a "master" to perform the rituals that Hung had come up with. Before contacting the homeowner, Hung instructed Ly on how to ask for the ceremony fee, which was from 20 million VND or less for ordinary people, and from 30 million to 50 million VND for companies and businesses.
On November 1, Ly went with "master" Hung and a person hired by Ly to the house of Ms. D.TS (49 years old, residing in Phu My town) to perform exorcism and soul removal as agreed.
Here, "master" Hung predicted that there were two ghosts under the floor in Mrs. S's bedroom. After that, Hung performed rituals he invented to exorcise them.
After finishing the ceremony, Mrs. S's sister called Ly and Hung over and gave Ly a bag of money containing 200 million VND.
While Ly was counting money, the police raided, caught him red-handed, and confiscated all evidence and assets and brought them to the police station.
During the extended investigation, the police determined that from September to November 2023, in addition to the above incident and in the same manner, Hung and Ly also appropriated from two other people residing in My Xuan ward, a total of 23 million VND.
The case is being further investigated and clarified by the police.
