Former beauty queen sentenced to 15 years in prison in multi-million dollar fraud case.

By selling and receiving deposits for a 30,000 m2 plot of land despite not having an investment permit, a beauty queen in Saigon illegally earned millions of dollars.

After six days of trial, on the morning of July 26, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced Truong Thi Tuyet Nga (56 years old, residing in Go Vap district - a former winner of the Successful Businesswoman Beauty Pageant in 2009) to 15 years in prison for the crime of fraud and appropriation of property.

According to the case details, in 2007-2008, Ms. Nga applied for a permit to invest in and build a high-end residential and commercial center project on a 30,000 m2 plot of land in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. However, this land was located within the planned area for the Thu Thiem railway station, so the defendant was not granted the construction and investment permit as desired.

Nevertheless, the beauty queen still signed a land use rights transfer contract with Ms. Duong My Linh, receiving a deposit of 3.1 million USD (according to the indictment). According to the agreement, the selling price was 1,800 USD/m2, with a total transaction value of 54 million USD. The transfer contract did not specifically describe the location of the land plot.

When questioned by the customer, Nga reassured them by stating that a detailed contract would be provided once the full payment for the land was made. At the trial, Ms. Nga claimed that the receipt for the final 1.5 million VND was a document summarizing the total amount she had received from Ms. Linh, and absolutely not an additional payment.

Conversely, Ms. Linh claimed that in addition to previous transactions, the last transaction involved giving Ms. Nga an extra $1.5 million. Upon receiving the money, Ms. Nga did not fulfill her previous commitments. However, in the sentencing phase, the court ordered the defendant to return $3.1 million to Ms. Linh.

Using another deceptive tactic, and leveraging her connections, Nga obtained several land use right certificates. Using these documents, she transferred ownership to her son, then used these "red certificates" to mortgage them for 131 billion VND at a bank, before being discovered.

Defendant Tuyet Nga on July 26th.

During the investigation, authorities also received numerous complaints from individuals and organizations accusing the beauty queen of defrauding them of nearly 900 billion VND. The Investigation Department of the Supreme People's Procuracy also decided to prosecute the defendant for bribing several officials to escape punishment for defrauding them of 3.1 million USD.

Regarding the case of the 2,909 m2 of land that was notarized and transferred to Mr. Tran Van Muoi, and Ms. Tuyet Nga allegedly misappropriating nearly 1.5 billion VND, the defendant claims that there was absolutely no land sale or money exchange with him. The defendant stated that the land in question was used to pay Mr. Muoi for helping to collect land from residents of Binh Khanh ward, District 2.

On April 2, 2008, the defendant Nga and her husband authorized Mr. Muoi to transfer or authorize the aforementioned plot of land to anyone else. However, just one day later, the couple authorized their child to use this document to borrow money from the bank.

For his part, Mr. Mười argued that the actual transaction for the aforementioned land area was worth 35 billion VND, not 1.5 billion VND as stated in the indictment. He claimed that the 1.5 billion VND figure was merely for the purpose of tax evasion. The court affirmed that this was a legitimate transaction, and the land plot belonged to Mr. Mười.

According to Zing