Fabricating a tragic love story, they swindled over 300 million VND from the elderly man.
Mến fabricated a tragic love story to evoke sympathy from others, thereby swindling over 300 million VND.
Le Thi Men (born in 1996, residing in Thuc Khang commune, Binh Giang district, Hai Duong province) does not have a stable job. In 2016, Men left her hometown to go to Hanoi to find work and stayed with her aunt, Phan Thi Luong (born in 1974, residing in Thinh Liet ward, Hoang Mai district, Hanoi).
Because Ms. Luong trusted her, Men conceived the idea of creating false information to deceive Ms. Luong and steal her money. Men fabricated a fictional lover named Son and then embellished a dramatic story claiming that her friend, out of jealousy, spread rumors that she was pregnant with Son's child in order to gain Ms. Luong's sympathy.
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| Defendant Mến at the trial. |
After hearing her niece's heartfelt story, Ms. Luong trusted Men and gave her 7 million VND to help her resolve her "emotional problems."
Seeing that "the fish had bitten the bait," from October 2016 to August 2017, Men used the Zalo social network to create fake accounts and repeatedly sent messages to Ms. Luong, defrauding her of a total of 327 million VND for personal use.
Determining Mến's criminal conduct to be serious, the first-instance court sentenced Mến to 8 years in prison for fraud and misappropriation of property. Subsequently, Mến filed an appeal requesting a reduction in sentence.
At the appeal hearing, considering the defendant's sincere confession and apparent remorse, the panel of judges sentenced Mến to 7 years and 6 months in prison.
