The tailor swindled land sales, embezzling nearly 4.5 billion VND

On August 24, the People's Court of Da Nang City sentenced Hoa (53 years old, residing in Lien Chieu district) to 16 years in prison for the crime ofFraudulent appropriation of property; 4 years in prison for the crimeForging seals and documents of agencies and organizations; forced to return all the money appropriated from the victims.

Defendant Nguyen Thanh Hoa in court. Photo:Nam Em

Hoa worked as a tailor. From the beginning of 2017 to September 2019, he "bragged" that he had many plots of land in Lien Chieu district that he wanted to sell and did the procedures to transfer land use rights and transfer the names to buyers. Hoa also invited many people to contribute capital to buy land and "run" the procedures to transfer land use rights.

To make the victims trust and hand over their money, Hoa ordered and delivered 10 fake sets of documents to the buyers, each set had two documents including a land allocation form for house construction and a map of the land location to be allocated. In this way, Hoa appropriated nearly 4.5 billion VND from 9 victims.

When the victims discovered irregularities in the land transaction, Hoa used the excuse of "waiting for procedures, need more money". Many victims, impatient to have the red book, continued to give Hoa money and were scammed again.

In court, the defendant's testimony was inconsistent. If he saw any content that was unfavorable to him, he answered "I don't remember" or "I don't know". The victims who witnessed this were all upset about this and asked the panel of judges to give Hoa the highest sentence.