Promising huge profits, woman swindles 7.7 billion VND into investing in 'virtual' agricultural products

Contribute capital to trade agricultural products for "huge" profits

Phan Thi Hoa (born in 1986), from Yen Thanh district, Nghe An, residing in Tua Chua town, Dien Bien. Although she has just finished 12th grade and only works in small business and foreign exchange investment, Hoa is good at speaking and has a wide network of relationships. Because of her trust in Hoa, many friends have fallen into the trap set by this "monster".

According to the case, from the end of 2021 to December 2022, Phan Thi Hoa invested in forex, leading to losses. Because she wanted to have money to complete new orders and withdraw the money she had paid for the old order, Phan Thi Hoa came up with the idea.fraud and appropriation of property.

By deceitful means, Hoa "bragged" to the victims that he traded agricultural products in large quantities, each order sold several tons, currently received many orders and sold to customers all over the country and exported abroad, so he needed a lot of money to trade.

To create trust, Hoa promised to pay the victims a "huge" profit of 10-12%/month and allowed them to flexibly withdraw capital and profits when needed. In addition, to make the victims more confident, Hoa uploaded images of agricultural products on Facebook groups, wrote down fake sales order lists in a notebook, took pictures and sent them to the victims.

Hoa also created a fake Facebook account named "Nguyen Linh" and a fake Zalo account named "Doan Ngoc", then used this fake account to text the real account "Hoa Phan" to order tons and dozens of tons of agricultural products, then took a screenshot of the conversation to send to the victim to trust.

Partly because of their close relationship, after hearing Hoa speak, many victims trusted her and transferred money to this “monster” to contribute capital to the business. The money was transferred in several installments according to each shipment that Hoa reported.

However, after receiving the money from the victims, Hoa did not use it to trade agricultural products as promised, but used the money he had appropriated from the victims to invest in foreign exchange (forex), for personal expenses, and used it to pay a small amount of the profits from the previous capital contribution to the victims.

From late December 2022 to early January 2023, Phan Thi Hoa said that there were many Tet orders, all of which were short-term orders with high profits due to the pressure on buyers. During the capital contribution period, because the victims did not withdraw their capital, Hoa still had enough money to pay the profits as committed.

On February 16, 2023, Hoa did not have money to pay, so he lied to the victims that he had sent the goods to the customers but could not be contacted. After that, the victims came to Hoa many times to ask for the money back, but Hoa did not pay and fled the area, cutting off contact. Realizing that he could not escape punishment for his actions, on March 20, 2023, Hoa went to the police station to surrender.

With the above tricks, from November 2021 to March 2022, Phan Thi Hoa appropriated money from 6 victims, the most of which was Ms. Trinh Thi P. (residing in Yen Thanh district) nearly 2.6 billion VND, the least of which was Ms. Nguyen Thi H. (residing in Vinh city) nearly 80 million VND. The total amount of money Hoa appropriated from the victims was more than 7.7 billion VND.

Price

At the trial of defendant Phan Thi Hoa for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" which took place at the end of February 2024, defendant Hoa admitted to the crime as charged in the indictment. Hoa confessed that due to losses in foreign exchange investment, she got into debt and was unable to pay, so she thought of a way to fraudulently appropriate property. Taking advantage of her close relationships with brothers and friends, Hoa appropriated the property of many people. The defendant also expressed her sincere remorse and repentance for her actions, and apologized to the victims.

The victims who came to court all expressed their indignation because they had lost a large sum of money after a long time of saving. “The money was the sweat and tears of my husband and I, we even borrowed from relatives to lend to Hoa. Now we demand that the defendant Hoa must return all the money he appropriated,” said victim T.

As one of the victims who lost a lot of money, Ms. Trinh Thi P. sadly said that through her high school friends, Hoa invited Ms. P. to invest in trading agricultural products, but at first she did not agree because she did not have money. At the end of 2021, Hoa lied to Ms. P. that she was currently selling agricultural products such as bamboo shoots, mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, cordyceps... wholesale to many customers across the country. To create trust, Hoa sent pictures of drying bamboo shoots at home and invited Ms. P. to contribute capital to participate. Hoa promised to pay a profit of 12-13%/month and committed to guarantee the capital, if she wanted to withdraw, she just had to notify a few days before the due date.

From November 25, 2021 to January 12, 2023, Ms. P. repeatedly transferred capital contributions of more than 8 billion VND, including 2 other people contributing capital through Ms. P. However, after receiving the money, Hoa did not perform as promised. To make Ms. P. trust and continue to contribute capital, Hoa took money from another victim to return part of the capital and profit to Ms. P. Currently, the amount of money H. appropriated from Ms. P. is nearly 2.6 billion VND.

In the same situation, Ms. Ho Thi L. was luckier as she lost less money. According to Ms. L., the two were close friends. “When Hoa invited me, I invested nearly 4.7 billion VND in business. After a while, Hoa paid me more than 3.8 billion VND. Currently, there is more than 800 million VND that has not been recovered. This is the money my husband saved from going to sea. Luckily, my husband understands and sympathizes with me, so our family relationship is not affected,” Ms. L. shared.

After a comprehensive review of the case, the panel sentenced Phan Thi Hoa to 19 years in prison for “fraudulent appropriation of property”. Regarding the civil part, the court required the defendant to compensate the entire remaining amount of money that had been appropriated from the victims. The perpetrator must pay for his crime, but the consequence is that many families fell into debt because of greed for profits and invested in the wrong place. This is a clear lesson for people who are willing to listen to the enticement of scammers without checking.