20-year-old man extorts property from ladies through Zalo friendship

On the morning of June 14, Tan Ky District People's Court tried the criminal case against Bui Duy Hoa (born 2002), residing in Tan Son commune, Quynh Luu district, Nghe An province, for the crime of "Extortion of property".

Around February 2020, Hoa used a Zalo account named “Bach Ma Hoang Tu” to get acquainted and become friends with the Zalo account “DK” of Ms. NTDK (born in 1999), residing in Tan Ky district. After becoming friends for a few days, Hoa made a video call on Zalo with Ms. K. and filmed himself naked for Ms. K. to see, and recorded a video of the call screen.

Around April 2020, Hoa texted K. asking her to make a nude video call for her to watch, otherwise, Hoa would send the screen recording of K. watching Hoa naked earlier to K.'s family.

Because she was afraid that her family would find out, Ms. K. took off her shirt and made a video call using Zalo, exposing her breasts to Hoa. Hoa asked Ms. K. to strip naked, but Ms. K. refused and blocked the Zalo account “Bach Ma Hoang Tu” and deleted her Zalo account “DK”.

Because he could not contact Zalo, Hoa used a Facebook account named "Hoang Tu" to make friends with Ms. NTDK's Facebook account and continuously texted and video called via Messenger, asking Ms. K. to show him naked, and also sent a video of Ms. K.'s exposed breasts. Hoa continued to ask Ms. K. to show him naked, but Ms. K. did not agree, so Bui Duy Hoa threatened that if she did not show him, he would give her money or else he would send the nude video to Ms. K.'s family and friends.

Defendant Bui Duy Hoa. Photo: Phuong Hao

Out of fear, Ms. K. asked Mr. VTL, who lives in the same commune, to transfer 500,000 VND to Hoa's Agribank account. A few days later, Hoa continued to threaten her, so Ms. K. continued to ask Mr. VTL to transfer 1,500,000 VND to her Agribank account.

In early August 2020, Hoa used a Facebook account named "Nguyen Quoc Hung" and many other Facebook accounts to message Ms. K., threatening to release a video of Ms. K.'s exposed breasts, asking Ms. K. to call a video of her masturbating for Hoa to watch and give Hoa 1,000,000 VND. If she did not give the money, she would have to introduce Hoa to two other girls so that Hoa could continue to use the same tricks as with Ms. K. to commit the crime.

On August 13, 2020, while Hoa was hanging out with Ms. PTHY residing in Huong Khe district, Ha Tinh province, Ms. K. texted to transfer money to Hoa. Hoa asked Ms. K. to transfer money to Ms. Y.'s Vietcombank account. Ms. K. asked Ms. NTH, residing in Giai Xuan commune, Tan Ky district, to transfer 1,000,000 VND to Hoa to Ms. Y.'s account number.

On February 23, 2021, Hoa continued to use the account named "Nguyen Quoc Hung" to send messages to Ms. K's account many times but did not receive a reply, so Hoa searched for and sent a video of Ms. K's exposed breasts to the Facebook account "Trang Ngo" (Ms. K's husband's sister)" with the message "I don't remember how many times I called K., each call I charged 1 million VND and asked Ms. K's husband's sister to transfer 10,000,000 VND to Hoa, otherwise Hoa would spread Ms. K's video.

At this time, because Ms. K's sister-in-law did not have any money, Hoa asked her to transfer 1,500,000 VND to Hoa's Agribank account in advance.

On the morning of February 25, 2021, Ms. K.'s sister-in-law was afraid that Hoa would spread her sister-in-law's nude video, so she transferred 1,500,000 VND to Hoa's Agribank account. After receiving the money in her account, Hoa was on her way home when the Tan Ky District Police detained her in an emergency and then brought her to the Tan Ky District Police for investigation.

At the Investigation Police Agency, in addition to the crimes mentioned above, Bui Duy Hoa also confessed: Around May 2020, Bui Duy Hoa used the Zalo account "Bach Ma Hoang Tu" to get acquainted and make friends with the Zalo account "NTT" of Ms. NTT (born in 2000), residing in Yen Thanh district, Nghe An province. After texting for a while, Hoa flirted and asked for sex, but Ms. T. did not agree. Then Hoa asked Ms. T. "do you go to a client (prostitution)", "because it is far away, you need to test before going". After receiving the reply message, Hoa called Ms. T. to ask her to get naked, Ms. T. agreed, at this time Bui Duy Hoa secretly recorded the entire video screen of the call.

A few days later, Hoa called and asked Ms. T. to show him naked, but Ms. T. did not agree, so Bui Duy Hoa texted her threateningly, demanding that Ms. T. sell sex to Hoa or he would post a video of Ms. T. naked on social media, but Ms. T. did not agree.

In December 2020, Hoa sent a message from the Zalo account "Bach Ma Hoang Tu" to Ms. T. threatening to transfer 1,500,000 VND to Hoa's Agribank account, otherwise Hoa would post nude photos of Ms. T. on social media. Due to fear of having nude photos posted online, on December 16, 2020, Ms. T. transferred the above amount to Hoa via her bank account. Bui Duy Hoa has so far spent all of this money for personal use.

During the investigation, Hoa influenced the family to return 3 million VND to Ms. K, 1.5 million VND to Ms. T, 1.5 million VND to Ms. K's sister-in-law, and 20 million VND to compensate for mental damage to Ms. K. The victim also filed a petition for leniency for Hoa.

At the end of the trial, the panel sentenced Bui Duy Hoa to 12 months in prison.