Driving a blue-plate car, impersonating a police officer to defraud people of gambling money

On May 24, the Criminal Police Department (PC45, Nghe An Provincial Police) announced that this unit has decided to prosecute the case and prosecute Hoang Ba De (born in 1978, residing in Cua Lo Town) to continue investigating the crimes of Fraudulent appropriation of property and Abuse of trust to appropriate property.

Subject Hoang Ba De. Photo provided by police

Initial investigation, De was a driver for the Cultural and Sports Center of Cua Lo Town. De was addicted to gambling and fell into debt. De was once sentenced to 6 months in prison by the Vinh City People's Court but given a suspended sentence for gambling. Also because of his debt and addiction to gambling, De thought of ways to scam people to get money to spend.

In August 2015, through connections, De met NVP and his father (living in Lang Son commune, Anh Son). Knowing that P. was looking for a job, De introduced himself as a police officer of Nghe An province. De promised to help P. get into the police academy for 250 million VND. To make P.'s family trust him, every time they met, De drove a blue-plate car and showed off his wide acquaintances.

However, later, because P. passed the police service exam, P.'s family introduced another person residing in Thanh Chuong district (Nghe An) who wanted to enroll in the People's Security College 1 to De.

On August 18, 2015, De took the initiative to meet this person at the Nam Dan District Police Headquarters. To gain trust, De lied to the victim's family that he was going to work with the Nam Dan District Police and then came back to meet the family and received a deposit of 50 million VND.

Many months later, De could not help the victim's family, but did not return the money and kept it for personal use.

When he ran out of money and was being asked for money by other creditors, De called the victim's family again to trick them into giving him an errand and asked for another 50 million VND. Trusting De, on August 26, 2015, the victim transferred another 50 million VND to De's account. De immediately withdrew and spent the money.

Seeing that the admission notice had not arrived for a long time, the victim's family called to ask, but De gave many reasons to promise. When urged again, De threw away his phone SIM card and ran away. After 3 years of searching for De to get his money back without success, the victim's family filed a complaint with the police.

Knowing he could not escape, on May 9, 2018, De went to the Nghe An Police Department to surrender and confessed all his actions.

The incident is continuing to be investigated by the authorities.