Pretending to be a monk, he cheated a barber shop owner out of more than 200 million VND.
"Judging" that the barber shop owner's wife was "possessed", a group of fake monks repeatedly asked for money for offerings, defrauding her of hundreds of millions of dong.
Da Lat City Police (Lam Dong) just had Nguyen Van Dut (40 years old) and Nguyen Hoai Nam (27 years old, both from Tien Giang) re-enact the scene of the property fraud case.
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Stop experimenting with swapping money on a plate while the victim is facing away. Photo:Khanh Huong |
According to the investigation, on September 23, Nam went to a barber shop in Da Lat City, claiming to be a monk and asking for donations. Seeing that the homeowner's wife was pregnant, he said she was "possessed by a spirit", then asked for 7 million VND to make an offering tray to send the spirit to the temple.
Seeing that it was easy to fool, Nam, Dut and a woman (identity unknown) discussed the next plan. When arriving at the barber shop, Dut claimed to be Nam's master, and the woman was a Buddhist who followed him. Dut claimed that the shop owner's wife was seriously possessed by a "spirit", and asked for 28 million VND (according to the victim's lunar age) to continue the offering.
After 2 successful scams, knowing that the shop was empty, Dut suggested asking the "ancestor" for fortune with the following "packages" of offerings: small fortune (79 million VND), medium fortune (99 million VND) and big fortune (199 million VND). The hair salon owner chose big fortune.
The third time, in mid-October, the group of scammers asked the homeowner to put 199 million VND in a red cloth and cover it. They told the couple to turn their backs and bow in all four directions to perform the ceremony, then took the pile of hell money and swapped it for the real money.
After the ceremony, Dut told the homeowner to put the plate containing the money in a locked cabinet and open it after 7 days to use it for business purposes. After escaping, this "master" withdrew 120 million VND and hid it, saying that he only "offered" 79 million VND and divided it into 3 parts.
After a period of hiding, Dut and Nam were arrested in Tien Giang.
