While being investigated, he still risked defrauding 1 billion VND to "get a suspended sentence"

On September 17, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a trial of two defendants, Tran Hai (born in 1970, residing in Da Nang city) and Luu Xuan Tam (born in 1979, from Nghe An, residing in Dong Nai province) for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property”.

According to the case file, around December 2022, Mr. Luong Van Q. (residing in Vinh Phu ward) was detained for gambling and became acquainted with Luu Xuan Tam. At this time, Tam was being arrested by the police for "Fraudulent appropriation of property" by way of running a case.

In mid-March 2023, due to a change in the preventive measure (bail), the two met again. During the meeting and conversation, Tam introduced to Q. that he had a change in the preventive measure because someone working at the investigation agency of the Supreme People's Procuracy asked for help and was asking this person to run a suspended sentence.

Believing that Tam had a wide network of connections, Q. contacted him to ask him to help him get a suspended sentence. After Q. sent him a photo of the indictment, Tam sent it to Hai to see if he could help him get a suspended sentence. A few days later, Hai told Tam that he could get a suspended sentence for 700 million VND.

Although Tam was previously arrested for fraud and appropriation of property by fraudulently avoiding a sentence, he knew that Tran Hai did not work at the Supreme People's Procuracy, but to make Q. trust him, Tam gave that information to fraudulently avoid a sentence.

Believing what Tam said was true, Mr. Q. transferred money to Tam many times. On May 17-19, 2023, Q. transferred 700 million VND to Tam to "fix the case".

After receiving the agreed amount of money, because he wanted to “extort” more money from the victim, Hai told Tam that since there were many people in the case, if he wanted to get a suspended sentence for Q., he would have to pay more for the accomplices. Therefore, Tran Hai told Tam to take nearly 300 million VND more from Q.

The investigation agency determined that from May 14, 2023 to June 11, 2023, Luu Xuan Tam appropriated 1 billion VND from Mr. Q. Of which, Tran Hai directed and agreed with Tam to appropriate 930 million VND from Q. to run the case, and Tam pocketed the remaining 70 million VND.

After that, Mr. Q. was sentenced to 4 years in prison for "Gambling". Nearly 1 year later, the victim filed a complaint against Hai and Tam for their fraudulent behavior.

At the trial, the two defendants admitted their crimes. Defendant Tam confessed that because of greed and needing money to pay off debt, he defrauded Mr. Q. even though at that time he was being prosecuted by the investigation agency for "fraudulent appropriation of property" by defrauding the court.

Defendant Hai confessed that he committed fraud to appropriate money from the victim. The two defendants asked the court to consider reducing their sentences.

The panel of judges determined that the defendants' actions were dangerous to society, directly infringed on the property rights of others protected by law, and caused disorder and insecurity in society.

After considering the role of each defendant in the case, the panel sentenced Luu Xuan Tam to 14 years in prison, and defendant Tran Hai to 12 years in prison for "fraudulent appropriation of property".