Luring people to buy 'cheap cars' to appropriate nearly 40 billion VND

With the trick of "having a source of imported cars" and offering prices cheaper than the selling price in the Vietnamese market, Truong lured hundreds of people to deposit to buy over 309 cars and then appropriated nearly 40 billion VND.

Nguyen Thai Truong (33 years old), who once "made waves" in the automobile market in Can Tho with the "cheap cars" trick, was prosecuted and detained by the police to investigate the crime of "fraudulent appropriation of property" - Photo: Provided by the police

On December 2, Colonel Tran Ngoc Hanh - Director of Can Tho City Police - said that he had initiated a case, prosecuted the accused, and temporarily detained Nguyen Thai Truong (33 years old), residing on Le Hong Phong Street, Binh Thuy District, Can Tho City, for 3 months to investigate the crime of "fraud and appropriation of property".

According to initial investigation, Truong is originally from Dak Nong province, has been residing in Can Tho since 2013 and works in used car sales.

Seeing that the used car trading business was making “little” profit, from the beginning of 2015, Truong started spreading the news that he had a source of “cheap imported cars” and accepted to “help” buy all types of cars from major brands with a difference in price from the manufacturer of 100 - 500 million VND/car.

Although it has no legal status and the "car trading point" is only at a coffee shop on Le Hong Phong street, many people have brought money to Truong to buy cheap cars.

To gain trust, at first Truong still brought money to buy cars and deliver them to customers as promised, accepting a loss of 100 million to several hundred million VND per car.

Seeing this, the number of people who brought money to “deposit” for Truong to buy cheap cars increased. Some people were willing to give Truong billions to order many cars, and even acted as brokers for Truong to receive commissions.

After a while, as more and more people came to order cars with large sums of money, Truong started making promises over and over again, sometimes "the imported cars have not arrived yet", sometimes "you have to pay the full amount to get the car"...

Seeing that the money had been paid in full but the car was not delivered, many people became suspicious. When faced with backlash, Truong said he was absent from Can Tho to “work with the car company” and then turned off his phone, disappearing without a trace.

The Director of Can Tho Police said that through initial verification, the suspect showed signs of fleeing with the embezzled money. Can Tho City Police coordinated with Khanh Hoa Province Police to temporarily detain Truong while he was hiding in Nha Trang City.

“Up to now, the police have identified 172 people who were tricked by Truong into paying deposits to buy 309 cars and appropriated over 39.5 billion VND. Truong stated that he spent all the money he appropriated for personal purposes,” Colonel Hanh added.

The case is being further investigated by the police.

According to Tuoi Tre