The bitter end of 3 young men in a billion-dollar fraud ring

Forged arrest warrant of Major General Ho Sy Tien to commit fraud

This is probably the first "reunion" of Pham Dinh Luan (born 1993), Nguyen Huu Thu (born 1991) and Pham Dinh Phi (born 1999), all residing in Huong My commune, Luong Tai district, Bac Ninh, since the appeal hearing took place nearly 2 years ago.

After the appeal, Luan was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and was sent to a prison camp in Hai Duong to serve his sentence. Also sentenced to this sentence, Nguyen Huu Thu was transferred to serve his sentence at Prison Camp No. 6 - Ministry of Public Security (located in Thanh Chuong district) with Pham Dinh Phi (sentenced to 8 years).

All three were brought to Nghe An Provincial People's Court to participate in the trial of Nguyen Van Phi (born 1990), residing in Bao Dai commune, Luc Nam district, Bac Giang province, as witnesses.

Nguyen Van Phi was accused by authorities of being the leader of a ring of fake police, prosecutors, telecommunications employees... committing fraud, appropriating 3.3 billion VND from 5 victims in Khanh Hoa and Nghe An.

Trial of fraud and property appropriation case. Photo: Nhu Binh

According to the indictment of the People's Procuracy of Nghe An province, around August 2018, while in Taiwan, Nguyen Van Phi contacted Pham Dinh Luan (Phi's cousin-in-law) to find someone to open accounts at banks. Phi bought the above bank cards for 3 million VND each. Luan asked Thu and Pham Dinh Phi to go to the banks and open a total of 15 accounts.ATM account.

Then, Nguyen Van Phi called the victims, claiming to be a telecommunications operator, informing them of their debt, then pretending to be an investigative officer of the Ministry of Public Security, "sending messages" that these people were being investigated for their involvement in an international drug and money laundering ring, and asking them to transfer money to the "police agency's" account to serve the investigation in order to prove his innocence.
To make the victims fear, believe and transfer money to the account he designated, Phi even forged an emergency arrest warrant signed by Major General Ho Sy Tien (at that time, Director of the Department of Police Investigation of Social Order Crimes - Ministry of Public Security) and sent it to the victims via Zalo.

Phi told Luan that when money was transferred to the bank accounts, he should withdraw the cash and deposit it into another account of Phi. In return, Luan would receive 20% of the withdrawn amount. In just 1 week, Luan, Thu and Dinh Phi withdrew a total of more than 3.3 billion VND to send to Phi.

The actions of Luan, Thu and Dinh Phi were discovered, arrested and brought to trial by Nghe An police not long after. Nguyen Van Phi was arrested by police upon his return from Taiwan in March 2020.

The bitter end of 3 young men "working for hire" for the fraud boss

At the time Luan was arrested, his wife was 6 months pregnant with their first child. The young wife reluctantly hugged her pregnant belly and went to Nghe An to visit her husband, tears streaming down her face. However, that marriage did not last as long as those tears. “My wife gave birth to a son, and after a while we broke up. Now she is raising the child alone,” Luan sadly confided. Being in prison and his wife leaving him, Luan seemed indifferent to life. Appearing in court as a witness, Luan still believed he was wronged, occasionally questioning the judge and prosecutor, forcing the judge to remind him. Throughout the trial, Luan continuously complained of stomach pain and poor health. “In prison, I lost 4 kg, often had stomach pain, sometimes the pain made me sweat, the doctor at the camp infirmary examined me and gave me medicine but it did not help. Maybe I was thinking too much,” Luan said.

The youngest and only one who did not appeal was Pham Dinh Phi. At the time of his arrest, Phi was just over 18 years old. With an 8-year sentence, when his prison term ended, Phi was 26 years old, an age when his peers had begun to settle down in their careers and families.

“I used to be a good student, I was able to get into the Math class at the high school. But then I dropped out of school because I was bored, I was more interested in playing video games. I dropped out of school, teachers, friends, and relatives advised me a lot, but at that time I was a "young buffalo" and competitive, I didn't listen. Playing video games for a while got boring, at that time I didn't think about going back to school anymore, so I followed the older guys to hang out, sometimes went to collect debts and got involved in this case", Phi confided with regret. When asked why he didn't appeal to have his sentence reduced, Phi said "I do it, I accept it". In prison, Phi was assigned to do weaving. Not used to manual work that required meticulousness and patience, Phi struggled to get used to it. "I'm good at knitting now, but after I get out of prison I have to find another job to do, because this job is not suitable for me", Phi said that, but he himself has not yet figured out what he will do after his prison term.

Pham Dinh Luan, Pham Dinh Phi and Nguyen Huu Thu. Photo: Nhu Binh

“I used to advise Phi not to drop out of school, but he didn’t listen,” Nguyen Huu Thu, sitting next to him, joined in the conversation. Contrary to the voice that seemed to be huddling together when the chairman asked, Thu was quite open about herself. Orphaned from a young age, and having a difficult family situation because her mother had to take care of her disabled brother, Thu dropped out of school early and went to work for a barge owner in the district. “I was lured in, but I didn’t know anything. Mr. Luan said he was going to open an ATM card to sell, so I invited Phi to go with me. At first, I didn’t know that doing so was against the law, but after each time Mr. Luan said he was going to withdraw money and was paid tens of millions of dong, I was suspicious, but the money was so easy. I didn’t have to put in any effort, but it was equal to several months of working on a barge, so I just did it. Back then, I had a phone, but I only opened it to look at random things and didn’t bother to learn about the law. Now I know it was wrong, but it’s too late…”, Thu said sadly.

Due to the same unfortunate circumstances, since her arrest, Thu has never seen her mother again because her mother has never visited her. Although she is sad, Thu does not blame her mother because in addition to having to bear the stigma of having a child in prison, she also has to take care of a disabled child. Perhaps, all her life, she has put so much hope into this healthy child...

“I lost everything, sister. In this case, I was awarded about 100 million VND but received 12 years in prison. I don’t have money to compensate them, so I probably won’t get a reduced sentence. I’m almost 30 years old now, and when I finish serving my sentence, I’ll be almost 40. What will life be like then, sister? The price to pay is too high!”, Thu said sadly.