A man pretending to be a beautiful woman tricked an old man into investing in virtual currency and stole more than 19 billion.

On July 21, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a trial for 5 defendants on charges ofFraudulent appropriation of propertyThe defendants include: Vi Van Linh (born 2003), residing in Con Cuong commune; Kha Van Uc (born 2002), residing in Mau Thach commune; Loc Van Tao (born 2001) and Luong Van Hien (born 2002), both residing in Nga My commune; Vi Thi Le (born 2002), residing in Binh Chuan commune, Nghe An.

According to the indictment, from September 2023 to June 12, 2024, the above subjects went to the "Golden Triangle" economic zone, participating in a fraud criminal group in Bokeo province (Lao PDR), masterminded and led by Chinese subjects.

When entering the “company”, the subjects were divided into groups by the Chinese to work. The members were provided with computers, phones, and were trained to use a “fraud script” consisting of the following steps.

First, they will create fake Facebook and Zalo accounts of many people, sharing images of being single, rich, and having a prosperous life from participating in investing through the "Biconomynft" application (this is a virtual cryptocurrency exchange application created by Chinese people and controlled according to their wishes).

After that, the subjects will choose suitable "prey" to send friend requests, text messages to get acquainted, create love relationships, and date online. After a period of talking, the subjects will find ways to call and entice the victims to invest in virtual currency.

Initially, the subjects will transfer to the victim a certain amount of money corresponding to the profit when the value of the cryptocurrency increases to make the victim trust and gradually increase the investment. Based on the investment results of the "prey", the mastermind group will make assessments to decide whether to "fatten" or "kill".

When the victims have invested a certain amount of money, the mastermind will "freeze" the account, not allowing withdrawals and giving many reasons such as additional account opening fees, withdrawal fees, income tax... to trick the victims into continuing to transfer money.

Using the above tricks, the subjects together committed fraud and appropriated more than 19.3 billion VND from Mr. NVH (68 years old, residing in Lam Dong province).

Among them, Vi Van Linh was the direct subject of the fraud. Linh created a Facebook account named “Pham Quynh Chau”, uploaded pictures of beautiful women, and posted articles about a rich life. When approaching the victim, Linh sent flirtatious messages, making Mr. H. trust and then develop feelings.

Linh then enticed Mr. H. to install and guide him to invest money on the BitcoinomyNFT application with many promises of profits. Trusting him, Mr. H. followed Linh's instructions and transferred more than 18.1 billion VND to invest.

In addition, Linh also independently carried out 13 separate scams against Mr. H. of 147 million VND. The amount of money that this subject illegally benefited from was more than 1.2 billion VND.

Kha Van Uc participated in defrauding Mr. H. of more than 5.1 billion VND. After returning to Vietnam, Uc independently defrauded Mr. H. 14 times for more than 1.1 billion VND. Thus, the total amount of money for which Uc must bear criminal responsibility is more than 6.1 billion VND.

In this case, Loc Van Tao, Vi Thi Le, and Luong Van Hien must bear criminal responsibility for a total amount of more than 18.1 billion VND.

At the trial, the defendants admitted to the crimes as charged in the indictment. The defendants stated that they had sent the embezzled money to relatives and spent it all to pay off debts.

After considering the role of each defendant in the case, the panel sentenced Vi Van Linh to life in prison, Kha Van Uc to 19 years in prison, and Loc Van Tao to 12 years in prison. Separately, the two defendants Vi Thi Le and Luong Van Hien each received a sentence of 9 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property.