Female director's labor export scam

Many workers fall into the "trap"

Ms. Minh (from Quang Binh province) does not have a stable job so she has the desire to go abroad.labor export. When someone introduced her to Ms. Nguyen Thi Ho (born in 1951), residing in Vinh City (Nghe An), she immediately went to meet her. Ms. Ho promised that she could take care of Minh and her husband's trip to Germany. However, later, the broker informed her that she could not leave for Germany, and at the same time instructed Minh and her husband to go to Korea.

According to Ms. Minh, at the meetings, Ms. Ho promised to have a reputable network, so Ms. Minh borrowed money and gave Ms. Ho cash and dollars many times, a total of 338 million VND. She consoled herself that after going to Korea, she would work hard to pay back the money she borrowed. However, this woman did not expect that she had been deceived.

In a similar situation is Mrs. Tam (from Quang Binh). With the desire to send her son to Korea quickly, when she learned that Mrs. Ho had a labor export contact, she came to ask for help. After a few discussions, Mrs. Ho "finalized" the cost of going to Korea to work at 230 million VND. After paying the full amount, Mrs. Tam's son was taken to a company based in Hanoi to attend a few classes, with a commitment to send him to Korea to work. But then, after that, there were only days of waiting... for the flight.

Victims attending the trial. Photo: Tran Vu

The victim who was scammed out of a larger amount of money was Mr. Phuc, a resident of Hung Nguyen District (Nghe An). Hearing that Ms. Ho had a connection to help people go to Korea without having to take the rigorous exams, he came to her and expressed his desire to become a... choir leader. Ms. Ho raised the price to 14,000 USD, equivalent to nearly 330 million VND. After many times of making appointments, rescheduling, and postponing the departure date with various reasons, Mr. Phuc realized he had been scammed.

The three cases mentioned above are victims of a labor export fraud ring. After these people came to Ms. Ho to ask for their money back, they found out that the person behind everything was the female director.Duong Thi Hue(born in 1985), residing in Thua town, Luong Tai district (Bac Ninh). Hue is the Director of Global Happinees Company Limited, headquartered in Bac Ninh city. Although the company was only granted a certificate of self-funded study abroad consulting services, it was not licensed to operate in the field of sending Vietnamese people to work abroad in general and Korea in particular. However, Hue committed fraud, sending people to the land of kimchi to work.

Fraudulent tricks

The female director's scam was to take advantage of her relationship with Ms. Nguyen Thi Ho and a woman named Nguyen Thi Xuyen (born in 1989), residing in Bac Giang province, to provide false information. This female director affirmed that her company was capable of sending workers to Korea for a total cost of 6,000 USD. Workers did not need to learn the language but only needed to submit documents including ID card, household registration book, passport, the company would take care of the remaining procedures. For brokers, if they successfully introduce a person to work in Korea, they will receive a commission of 1,000 - 2,000 USD.

After approaching Mrs. Ho and Ms. Xuyen, seeing that these two people were still skeptical, Hue invited them directly to the company. Here, the brokers saw that many people were learning Korean, so they believed the female director. Therefore, when they returned home, Mrs. Ho and Ms. Xuyen told their relatives and friends so that if anyone had a need, they could contact them and they would help them go to Korea to work.

In a short time, many people came to Ms. Ho for help. Ms. Ho directly received the documents and money of 18 workers, then took them to Global Happines Company Limited to meet Hue for consultation and to hand over the documents, deposits, and procedures. To gain the workers' trust, Hue also used another deceitful trick, which was to issue fake visa codes, then asked them to pay more money through Ms. Ho. Hue did not complete the procedures for exporting labor but used it to pay off personal debts and spent it all.

The investigation agency determined that from the end of 2017 to October 2018, Duong Thi Hue took advantage of Ms. Ho and Ms. Xuyen to defraud and appropriate from 41 people a total of more than 3.2 billion VND by tricking them into going to work abroad. Hue's victims were from all provinces and cities from Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh...

Appropriate sentence

On July 14, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Duong Thi Hue (born 1985), residing in Thua town, Luong Tai district (Bac Ninh) for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

On the day of the trial, many victims came to attend. They told the court that Hue's fraudulent behavior had caused their family's life to fall into misery and debt. The victims demanded that the defendant return the money that Hue had embezzled.

Standing before the witness stand, the defendant admitted to the fraud. Regarding the motive for the fraud, Hue stated that she had the intention to commit the fraud because her business had failed and she had debts that she could not pay. Hue stated that she had spent all the money she had taken from the victims for personal use. At the trial, defendant Hue apologized and promised to try to influence her family to return the money to the victims. The female defendant also presented her family situation, that she had divorced her husband, to consider reducing her sentence.

The jury determined that the defendant's fraudulent behavior violated the law and caused disorder in the area, so it should be strictly punished. However, in this case, it is also necessary to consider some mitigating circumstances for the defendant, such as her honest confession, repentance, and partial remediation of the consequences she caused. After considering the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the court sentenced the defendant Duong Thi Hue to 18 years in prison for "fraudulent appropriation of property", forcing the defendant to return the amount of money she had appropriated to the victims.

Defendant Duong Thi Hue. Photo: Tran Vu

As for Ms. Nguyen Thi Ho, when the incident was exposed, she quickly returned the difference of nearly 900 million VND that she had collected from the workers. In this case, Ms. Ho was also deceived by Hue out of 65 million VND, which was the amount of money she asked Hue to do the paperwork for her grandchild to go abroad. The investigation agency found that Ms. Ho did not intend to deceive to appropriate the workers' property, therefore, Ms. Ho's actions did not show signs of being an accomplice with Hue, but in fact she was also a victim, so the investigation police agency did not consider criminal responsibility for Ms. Ho. Similarly, Nguyen Thi Xuyen was also not considered criminal responsibility because there were no signs of being an accomplice with Hue.

Thus, Duong Thi Hue's fraudulent behavior had to pay the price with a suitable sentence. However, Nguyen Thi Ho and Nguyen Thi Xuyen are also blameworthy, because they did not know clearly about Hue and Global Happines Company Limited but still introduced and brokered many workers to be deceived. Through this, once again, it is a warning lesson for people, those who are in need of exporting labor need to learn carefully, go to reputable companies to avoid "losing money and getting sick".