"Unique trick" of the gambling-addicted director

From teacher to company director

At the end of 2015, the Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Police received a report from a number of self-drive car rental businesses about customers renting cars but not returning them after the contract period. Although the businesses tried many ways to contact them, the customers still found many reasons to avoid them.

It is worth mentioning that the subject denounced by the above businesses is currently under the "monitoring" of the Nghe An Provincial Police detectives. That is Dang Hong Anh (born in 1979, residing in Tan Thanh commune (Yen Thanh district) who is currently on bail, awaiting trial for gambling. He has continuously shown many signs of financial irregularities. In a short period of time, Hong Anh and his accomplices frequently changed the types of self-driving rental cars, and even bought 2 cars on installments at the same time. These signs have caused the detectives to raise many questions about the money flowing into Dang Hong Anh's pocket.

Through researching reliable sources of information, the detectives learned that Dang Hong Anh used to be a teacher at a primary school in Ky Son district. In addition to working as a teacher in the remote areas, Hong Anh also spent time working as a broker supplying gasoline, oil, and electricity to telecommunication stations in the mountains. With a stable income, Hong Anh decided to quit teaching to establish a limited liability company specializing in supplying oil and electricity to broadcasting stations in mountainous districts. Since the company was founded, Hong Anh gradually had many relationships, and with the company doing well, he began to get involved in gambling.

In 2015, Dang Hong Anh was arrested in a gambling case. After completing the investigation phase, Hong Anh was released on bail pending trial. At the same time, Hong Anh's company was losing money, not to mention the gambling debts that Hong Anh could not manage. Lacking money to spend, Dang Hong Anh discussed with Tran Duy Dong (born in 1986), a person from the same commune, to commit property fraud together. With sufficient evidence, on the afternoon of March 16, 2016, the authorities decided to prosecute the case, prosecute the accused and temporarily detain Nguyen Hong Anh and his accomplices to clarify the fraud.

18 rental cars and more than 7 billion VND

The first case that Hong Anh and his accomplices committed was in November 2015, when Dang Hong Anh rented a Toyota Innova from Mr. Nguyen HS (Dien Chau) for 750,000 VND/day, from November 2 to December 2, 2015. After renting the car, Dang Hong Anh immediately took it to pawn but was unsuccessful, so he asked Tran Duy Dong to pawn it.

On November 19, 2015, Tran Duy Dong hired someone to forge the car registration papers under the name of Tran Duy Dong for 2.5 million VND/driver's license, then pawned them at Phu's house (residing in Dien Lam commune, Dien Chau district). There, Phu checked the car registration and found it matched the license plate and Dong's name, but still required Dong's wife to come and have a marriage certificate before allowing him to pawn the car. Tran Duy Dong told Dang Hong Anh about this request and asked his friend Cao TL (residing in Dien Tho commune, Dien Chau district) to pretend to be Dong's wife.

At around 6pm that same day, Dong went home to get the marriage certificate and then went with Cao TL to Phu's house. There, Phu agreed to let Dong pawn the car and Dong had to write a loan note for 300 million VND. Dong gave the entire amount of money to Dang Hong Anh.

When the contract expired, Mr. Nguyen HS called many times to ask for the car and rental fee back, but Dang Hong Anh avoided him and turned off his phone. On March 8, 2016, Mr. Nguyen HS filed a complaint against Dang Hong Anh for fraudulently appropriating his self-driving car to Nghe An Provincial Police.

With this method, from the end of 2015 until his arrest, Tran Duy Dong had committed 6 frauds. As for Dang Hong Anh, he confessed that with the same method, he had committed 14 frauds, appropriating 14 cars of private business owners and LLCs, mainly 7-seat Innova cars, and pawned them to get money to pay debts and gamble.

After completing the fake documents, he pawned each car for 300 to 400 million VND. In addition, this subject also confessed that, taking advantage of the installment purchase policy of car dealers, he bought 2 cars on installment with license plate 37C-116.06 and 37C-186.79 from Ford. Although the documents and registration of the cars were kept by the sales unit, after getting the two cars back, Dang Hong Anh continued to ask people to forge the documents and sell them.

According to the investigation agency's conclusion, within 4 months, Anh and Dong committed 18 acts of fraud to appropriate assets from self-driving car rental companies, appropriating 18 cars and illegally profiting 7.2 billion VND.

Late regret

The trial of Dang Hong Anh took place at the end of June 2017, with many victims attending. Dang Hong Anh was prosecuted as the leader of this large-scale fraud ring.

According to the conclusion in the indictment of the People's Procuracy of Nghe An province, from March 2015 to March 2016, to have money to pay off debts, Dang Hong Anh and Tran Duy Dong used the name of the director to rent a self-driving car, then asked subjects in Dien Chau and Quynh Luu districts to forge registration papers and then pawned the car in many localities, committing 18 acts of fraud to appropriate property.

Their trick is to rent a self-driving car and then ask acquaintances to provide personal information such as full name, date of birth, hometown, ID number... to fake the car registration. Then, they pawn the car to get money to spend.

It is known that when renting a car, Dang Hong Anh spent a larger amount than the normal rental fee, from 30 to 40 million VND as a deposit and a contract with the company's red seal. Therefore, the car rental owners trusted him very much. The car rental owners were in many different locations so they did not know that they rented so many cars.

Before the panel of judges entered the deliberations, the defendants all expressed remorse and asked for leniency from the law. The two ringleaders, Dong and Hong Anh, both expressed remorse and pledged to compensate for the damages they caused. Hong Anh alone told the court: “I ask the court to reduce my sentence so that I can soon return to work to earn money to compensate for the damages I caused. If I cannot repay my debt in my lifetime, I will write a will so that my children and grandchildren can pay off all my debts.”

“The defendant never shirked his responsibility, hoping to receive leniency so that when he returns, he will have the opportunity and the strength to work. In fact, the defendant’s point of view is that the most important goal is to remedy the consequences of his actions. However, if the defendant receives a 19-year prison sentence (the representative of the Provincial People’s Procuracy proposed a sentence of 18-19 years in prison), then when he is released from prison, he will be 60 years old and will no longer have the strength.”

According to local people who used to be Hong Anh's neighbors, Dang Hong Anh, as a successful director, often participated in charity activities and local sports, cultural and educational movements. With his generosity, open-mindedness and background as a teacher, he was known by many villagers. As soon as they heard the news, many people were extremely surprised to learn that Hong Anh was involved in a gambling trap.

After deliberation, the Trial Council sentenced Dang Hong Anh to 16 years in prison and Tran Duy Dong to 12 years in prison for “fraudulent appropriation of property”. Regarding civil liability, Dang Hong Anh was forced to compensate the victim more than 3.3 billion VND, and Tran Duy Dong more than 2.6 billion VND.