Warning about land purchase fraud

Many sophisticated tricks

Recently, authorities have discovered, investigated and handled many cases of fraud and property appropriation in the land sector with sophisticated tricks.

Typically, in October 2023, Nghi Loc District Police issued a decision to prosecute the case and prosecute the defendant Le Thanh Hung, residing in Dien Ky commune, Dien Chau district, for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property.

According to the investigation results, Le Thanh Hung claimed to be able to handle "full package" land procedures such as: Preparing documents for land use conversion, changing information on land use right certificates (LURCs), preparing documents for land division and issuing LURCs. To gain the victim's trust, after receiving the money, Hung ordered fake LURCs, house ownership rights and other assets attached to the land on social networks and then gave them to the victim.

Nghi Loc District Police initially determined that from the end of October 2022 to June 2023, Le Thanh Hung defrauded and appropriated property of 06 victims with a total amount of more than 2.7 billion VND.

Previously, on April 5, 2023, the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Police temporarily detained Le Thi Thanh Xuan (born in 1970), residing in Boi Son commune, Do Luong district, to investigate and clarify the act of fraud to appropriate property through the form of mobilizing capital for real estate investment.

Accordingly, Xuan searched for people who wanted to sell land in Vinh city, Do Luong district and neighboring areas. After receiving information about the land seller and the land plot diagram, Xuan provided false information such as: There was a planned road running through it, road expansion, near urban areas about to be established... to attract acquaintances with good economic conditions to join in investing in buying land.

Xuan used all the money the victims contributed for personal purposes. Initially, the investigation agency determined that Xuan had defrauded and appropriated the assets of 4 victims with a total amount of more than 6 billion VND.

Similarly, on March 28, 2023, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Thai Thi Phuong Anh, residing in Hung Dong commune, Vinh city, for the crime of "fraudulent appropriation of property". Due to participating in a savings and credit association (hui) that led to debt, Phuong Anh came up with the idea of ​​defrauding and appropriating the property of Ms. Tran Thi Th., residing in Le Mao ward, Vinh city, by inviting people to contribute money to buy land to sell for profit.

Knowing that some areas in Hung Dong commune had beautiful plots of land, Anh randomly selected plots of land (not knowing who the owners of the plots were), then lied to Ms. Th. that the landowner was selling the land cheaply, if she bought it for investment and then resold it, she would make a profit and "bragged" that the land investment had the help of the Chairman of Hung Dong commune, Mr. Tran AT. More sophisticatedly, to gain the victim's trust, Anh bought a phone sim card, created a Zalo account named "Tan Tran", downloaded the profile pictures from this person's legitimate account and installed them on the fake account.

From the fake account, Anh texted Ms. Th. with the content "rest assured to invest in land with Phuong Anh", "if anything happens, I will stand behind to help", "because the sensitive issue is afraid of affecting work, so only contact via zalo"...

Between September 6 and October 6, 2021, Thai Thi Phuong Anh provided information about contributing money to buy 6 plots of land in Vinh City, appropriating nearly 1.2 billion VND from Ms. Th. It is known that recently, the authorities have received many criminal complaints from people about subjects using the trick of contributing capital to invest in buying and selling land, then defrauding and appropriating property.

Notably, some of the scammers were former officials in state agencies, so many people trusted them and contributed capital.

A typical case is Le Van Binh (born in 1970), former Captain of the Urban Order Management Team of Cua Lo Town (former Chairman of Nghi Hoa Ward People's Committee in the period of 2005 - 2009; former Party Secretary, Chairman of Nghi Hoa Ward People's Committee in the period of 2009 - 2015). Binh confessed that he started participating in land buying and selling activities since 2017. Because he participated with many people, many transactions, and could not control the money, leading to losses, he came up with a trick of using the cover of Captain of the Urban Order Management Team of Cua Lo Town to call for and persuade people to contribute capital to jointly invest in land in localities in Cua Lo Town, Nghi Loc District, Vinh City with an amount of tens of billions of VND and then defrauded and appropriated property.

The money from later contributors was used by Binh to pay the previous contributors. With the above tricks, from January to April 2021, Le Van Binh called for, received joint capital contributions and defrauded 4 victims in Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces with a total amount of nearly 29 billion VND. In November 2022, Binh was prosecuted for fraud and appropriation of property.

Similarly, in October 2022, the Investigation Police Agency of Nghe An Provincial Police prosecuted and issued an order to temporarily detain Tran Van Giang, former cadastral officer of Hung Dung ward, Vinh city, for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property.

Accordingly, taking advantage of the land "fever" in the area, under the guise of a master's degree, a cadastral officer with expertise in the land sector, Giang proactively approached acquaintances (mostly people with economic conditions, large amounts of idle money or civil servants) and "bragged" that he was a cadastral officer and therefore knew information about land plots that landowners wanted to buy and sell, then convinced the victims to give Giang money to "invest".

After receiving the money, Giang used it to pay off debts and for personal expenses. At the time of arresting Tran Van Giang, the police agency proved that this subject had appropriated more than 3 billion VND from the victims, and continued to verify and clarify the subject's fraudulent appropriation of property with 8 other victims who had filed complaints, with a total amount of about 25 billion VND.

It is worth mentioning that, during the investigation and verification process, the police encountered many difficulties because some of the victims were officials and civil servants working in state agencies, so they were afraid and did not want to report or provided incomplete information.

Be vigilant

According to the authorities, currently, land-related fraudsters often use a number of tricks such as selling land on paper, appropriating deposits, selling one real estate asset to many people; impersonating investors or reputable people to sell land; defrauding capital contributions to buy land; defrauding land plots, defrauding the ability to register land use rights and then appropriating money... Many subjects also take advantage of the land fever phenomenon to print and forge red books and then commit fraud.

Regarding this issue, the Vinh City Land Registration Office Branch (Nghe An Province Land Registration Office) has warned about the continuous occurrence of falsification of Land Use Rights Certificates and House Ownership Certificates to conduct real estate transactions to appropriate assets.

Authorities recommend that people should carefully determine the legality of real estate projects and land plots before making transactions or making deposits; carefully check the contract before signing, avoid believing in advertisements and enticements of subjects without verifying information from authorities. Especially when detecting abnormalities in land transactions or suspecting that red books and other documents are forged, people need to report to authorities for handling according to regulations.

In addition, many opinions say that the lack of timely and complete disclosure and transparency of land-related information is one of the "gaps" that can lead to subjects taking advantage of using fake red books, creating ghost projects or releasing "virtual" information to commit fraud. Therefore, to limit cases of people being deceived through land trading tricks, authorities need to review and advise competent authorities to overcome shortcomings and deficiencies in the fields of planning, management and land use. Authorities at all levels need to improve the effectiveness of state management in planning, management, land use, and construction licensing; widely and publicly inform and disseminate licensed projects in the locality so that people can access official sources of information.

In Nghe An, implementing Directive No. 21/CT-TTg dated May 25, 2020 of the Prime Minister on strengthening the prevention and handling of fraudulent activities of appropriating assets, including fraud and appropriation of assets in the land sector, the Provincial People's Committee has directed departments, branches, sectors and localities to promote the application of information technology, review, simplify and shorten the time to handle administrative procedures. Focus on improving the operational efficiency of the Public Administration Service Center, openness and transparency in handling administrative procedures, avoiding bad actors taking advantage of "broker" activities, defrauding and appropriating people's assets. At the same time, strengthen state management in areas that are prone to arise or have loopholes for criminals to take advantage of fraudulent appropriation of assets such as the land sector.