More than 100 households are devastated because of the collapse of a hui of more than ten billion VND in a rural village in Nghe An.

After picking the ward, declare the game over.

For many days now, in front of the house gate of Mrs. Hoang Thi Lam (44 years old), in Dinh Phung hamlet, Hop Thanh commune (Yen Thanh), there have always been a number of people standing on duty. They are all ward members of the ward lines headed by Mrs. Lam, standing here with the hope of meeting the homeowner to demand the money the ward has paid for many years. During the process of collecting the money, there have been many times when there have been fights between the parties, causing the neighborly affection of many years to seem to have dried up.

Mr. Nguyen Manh Quynh (63 years old), in Dinh Phung hamlet, said that Ms. Lam started mobilizing people to join the guild she owns since 2013. Mr. Quynh is one of the first guild members, participating regularly for the past 10 years. “There are many different guild lines, but mainly lines with a guild fee of 2 million VND/month. Those who have money can pay many fees. In previous years, the guild operated very openly and transparently. Every month, the guild leader would call everyone, and the guild member who bid the highest would receive the prize. The remaining guild members would share the profits,” Mr. Quynh said.

However, according to Mr. Quynh, since 2020, the ward lines headed by Ms. Lam have begun to show signs of a lack of transparency. “At this time, every month, the ward head no longer calls the ward members to meetings and public auctions. Many ward members need money but cannot ask for auctions. Ms. Lam always says someone has already picked up the money, but we don’t know who it is,” said the man who accused the ward head of owing 230 million VND. He said that despite the signs of ambiguity, because he had followed and trusted Ms. Lam’s husband and son, who were all officials, he and others continued to pay the ward fees regularly.

October 10, 2022 is the deadline for the 7 ward lines owned by Mrs. Lam. Each of these 7 ward lines has 22 portions, each portion is 2 million VND. At this time, Mrs. Lam and her husband called all ward members to come and collect the full amount of money from the 7 ward lines, which was more than 300 million VND.

“After collecting the money, Mrs. Lam and her husband announced that it was the ward chief’s turn this month to collect the money, so they took all the money. At the same time, they also announced that all the wards she managed would stop operating,” said Mr. Vo Van Chinh (75 years old).

Mr. Chinh is a war invalid and his health is also weak. He said that seeing that all the neighbors are participating in the guild run by Mrs. Lam, and the profits are good, he mobilized money from his children, along with the war invalid allowance he had saved for many years to participate. Every month, he regularly pays the guild fee to Mrs. Lam, but before he could collect any money from the guild, the guild owner announced that it would stop operating. Up to now, Mr. Chinh has paid the guild owner more than 400 million VND but has not received any money. Feeling sorry for the money, he and the guild members have repeatedly stood in front of Mrs. Lam's gate to demand the money, but they still did not see it, only receiving challenges from the guild owner. In order to put pressure on the guild owner, they brought banners and posters and used loudspeakers to play funeral music right in front of Mrs. Lam's gate to demand the money. A few days ago, while gathering in front of the guild owner's house, a fight broke out, and Mr. Chinh was beaten and lost a tooth...

According to Mr. Chinh, up to now, 60 people have signed a petition accusing Ms. Lam of appropriating nearly 10 billion VND of property belonging to ward members. The person with the most debt is over 1.4 billion VND from the ward owner.

“However, these are only the people who dare to come forward. There are many cases where people played the game without their husbands or children knowing, but now they have lost it and are afraid to admit it. According to our estimates, there are more than 100 people who played the game run by Ms. Lam and the amount of money that was stolen is much larger,” Mr. Chinh added.

Not only is she the ward head, in the past, Ms. Lam has also participated in a series of wards run by other people. In these places, Ms. Lam also took all the ward fees she participated in but then refused to pay the remaining months. According to the petition of the people, up to now, at least 6 ward heads have denounced this behavior with a total amount of more than 700 million VND.

Suspected asset disposal

Speaking to Nghe An Newspaper reporters, Mr. Hoang Manh Linh - Party Secretary, Chairman of Hop Thanh Commune People's Committee said that the collapse of the hui owned by Ms. Lam and her husband has seriously affected security and order in the area over the past time.

“Ms. Lam has been in charge of the ward lines since 2013, with many people participating. But on October 10, 2022, after collecting a large sum of money from the ward lines, she announced that she would stop all operations, leaving the ward members in a state of shock. This was also the time when Ms. Lam discovered she had severe diabetes, and her husband had just retired. We have known about this incident for a long time, and by the beginning of June 2023, 60 people had signed a petition to the authorities,” Mr. Linh said, adding that after receiving the petition, Hop Thanh commune established a working group with him as the head to handle the case. However, although the working group has organized four dialogues between Ms. Lam and her husband and the ward members, there have been no results so far because the ward owner lacks goodwill.

According to Mr. Linh, in all four conversations, Ms. Lam did not explain where the money the ward had collected from the people was. There was also no plan or roadmap for paying the ward members.

“At the dialogue, after listening to the analysis of the commune leaders, Ms. Lam said she would pay but did not have goodwill. She did not promise when she would pay and how. Now, only 60 people have filed applications for nearly 10 billion VND, and if she can only pay them 500,000 VND every now and then, it will be impossible for her to do so for the rest of her life. Ms. Lam's husband is irresponsible, always denying any connection to the hui. Meanwhile, he has also repeatedly collected money from the ward and signed receipts,” Mr. Hoang Manh Linh said, adding that at the dialogues, unlike the attitude of the ward head, the ward members were very goodwill. They accepted the loss, only asking Ms. Lam's family to pay half of the debt. The leaders of Hop Thanh commune also estimated that the number of victims of this ward head is more than 100 people with a total of more than ten billion VND.

According to ward members, after receiving the money from the ward, Mrs. Lam's family bought land, built a house for her two children in Vinh City, bought two cars for the two of them to use, invested in buying many plots of land and also deposited savings in the bank. However, recently, her family has quietly transferred most of the assets to others, withdrawn money from the bank...

In early June 2023, the ward members submitted a petition to the Yen Thanh District Police. After working with the police, Ms. Lam called the ward members, held hundreds of millions of dong in her hand, then distributed from 500,000 to 1 million dong to each person and asked them to sign for it. When only about 5-7 people were distributed, the husband stopped them and did not allow them to continue distributing!?

On June 9, Yen Thanh District Police Department responded to the petition of the ward members with the content of "not accepting the petition", and at the same time instructed them to transfer the petition to the Court for settlement based on Decree 19/2019/ND-CP of the Government "regulations on ho, hui, bieu, and wards". However, disagreeing with this notice of the police agency, the ward members continued to submit a petition to the Chairman of Yen Thanh District People's Committee.

According to the leader of Yen Thanh District People's Committee, on July 17, the District People's Committee issued a document on guiding citizens' petitions. Accordingly, after reviewing the content of the citizen's petition informing about the case, based on the provisions of the law, the Chairman of Yen Thanh District People's Committee commented as follows: "In the announcement dated June 9 of Yen Thanh District Police, citizens were requested to file a lawsuit with Yen Thanh District People's Court. If citizens do not agree with the request of Yen Thanh District Police, citizens are instructed to write a petition to the Director of Nghe An Provincial Police for consideration and settlement in accordance with the provisions of the law."

In response to the complaints from ward members, the reporter tried to contact the ward chief but was unsuccessful. The iron gate was often closed.