Man pays life sentence for swindling tens of billions of dong from Cambodia
From the “boss” of a cross-border fraud company to a defendant in the courtroom, Phan Van Phuong received a life sentence for appropriating tens of billions of dong from the Vietnamese people.
On October 15, after deliberation, Nghe An Provincial People's CourtSentencing 33 defendants in the case of "Fraudulent appropriation of property"occurred in Cambodia. This line was led by Phan Van Phuong (born in 1991), residing in Quang Dong commune (former Yen Thanh district), Nghe An province, who colluded with foreigners to set up a "company" to defraud and appropriate more than 14 billion VND from Vietnamese people.
Phan Van Phuong has lived in Cambodia and Myanmar for many years, so he knows a Taiwanese man (China) named A Minh. This man introduced himself as the owner of "companies" that operate to defraud and appropriate property of Vietnamese people by impersonating officials of state agencies such as the Police, the Procuracy, the Court...
After discussing the organization, operation, and profit sharing ratio, Phuong agreed to cooperate with A Minh to establish a fraudulent company.
On December 18, 2022, Phuong returned to Vietnam to meet and contact a number of people who were brothers, relatives, and friends to recruit them to go to Cambodia to work as scammers.
The first people were Doan Van Tung (born in 1990, Phuong's cousin), Hua Canh The (born in 1995, residing in Yen Thanh commune, Phuong's brother-in-law), Nguyen Trong Thong (born in 1996, residing in Quang Dong commune), Ho Quoc Tuan, Thai Sy Van (born in 1987, residing in Quang Dong commune), Dang Duy Quang (born in 1978, residing in Van Du commune), Nguyen Thi Sen, Thai Huu Vinh, Nguyen Duy Quyen.
Because of the promise of "easy work, high salary" and the company paying all initial costs, many other people in Yen Thanh, Thanh Chuong, and Con Cuong (old) districts were attracted to contact Cambodia to work.
On March 11, 2023, Phuong and the subjects left for Cambodia, went to the company's headquarters in a 17-storey building in Sihanoukville city, Phnom Penh and began studying the script to commit fraud.
The subjects used many different scenarios, calling people to threaten them about being involved in drug crimes, money laundering, and threatening to have them arrested.
When people are afraid and want to explain, the subject asks them to declare which bank account they are using, how much money they have, and then asks them to cooperate with the authorities to prove that their money is not related to criminal acts. After that, the subjects ask people to transfer money to the bank account provided by the company, or provide the OTP code to the subject, and withdraw money from savings books.
The company has a tight, systematic organizational structure consisting of many departments, levels, and specific roles and tasks. Each department is an indispensable part in the process of committing fraud.
In addition to the owner, Mr. Minh, the company also has a manager, interpreter, and Vietnamese employees assigned to groups D1, D2, and D3 who directly make calls to carry out the fraud.
In which, D1 called to find the victim and then transferred the call to D2 to manipulate her psychology. After that, D2 continued to transfer the call to D3 to carry out the act of appropriating the victim's property. The employees received salaries, commissions and living expenses paid by the company from the scammed money.
The investigation agency determined that from April 2023 to January 2024, using the above tricks, the subjects defrauded and appropriated more than 14.1 billion VND from 5 Vietnamese victims. Of which, the elderly victim in Ho Chi Minh City was defrauded and appropriated nearly 9 billion VND by this network.
At the trial, the defendants admitted to their crimes. Justifying their crimes, the defendants said that because of difficult family circumstances and lack of stable jobs, they went abroad to commit fraud. The defendants admitted that they knew that their actions were against the law, but because of greed, they defrauded the Vietnamese people of their money.
The panel of judges determined that the defendants' actions violated the law, were dangerous to society, and caused public outrage, so they needed to be dealt with severely to serve as a deterrent.
After considering the role of each defendant in the case, the panel sentenced Phan Van Phuong to life in prison; Thai Huu Vinh and Nguyen Duy Quyen also received 16 years in prison, and defendants Doan Van Tung and Le Thi Sen also received 15 years in prison. The remaining defendants received sentences ranging from 7 to 13 years in prison.
