The bitter end of a transgender girl who swindled and appropriated more than 1.5 billion VND

Fraudulent appropriation of property

In 2012, after graduating from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Pham Thi Phuong Loan (born in 1990), residing in Vu Doai commune, Vu Thu district, Thai Binh province, went to the southern provinces to live and work. Loan underwent plastic surgery to transform from female to male and changed her name to Nguyen Van Thu (born in 1980), residing in Vu Ninh city, Bac Ninh province; residing in Ho Chi Minh City.

In early 2016, Ms. Nguyen Thanh Be (living in Quang Binh province) - Loan's friend, lost her ID card so she asked Loan to post an ad to find it. She found Ms. Be's ID card but because she went back to her hometown and could not come to pick it up right away, Loan removed Ms. Be's photo from the ID card and used her own photo to paste it on. After that, Loan used this document to go to a bank to register an account.

In October 2017, through social networks, Loan used the Facebook account "Thomas Ngo" to know that Ms. Nguyen Thi V. (born in 1985), residing in Nghi Xuan commune, Nghi Loc district, Nghe An province, needed to find a woman currently in Korea to get back the bail money to prevent escape when traveling in Korea, so she created a Facebook named "Trang Giay To" and proactively made friends and sent messages to get to know her.

Loan knew that Ms. V. was being cheated by a man named Anh out of 300 million VND to pay to a travel company, so Loan had the idea of ​​appropriating Ms. V.'s property. When talking to Ms. V., Loan used the name Cao Canh Khanh and introduced to Ms. V. a man named Ngo Duc Minh (also Loan) who worked at the Korean Embassy, ​​so he was able to intervene to get back half of the money lost at the travel company.

Pham Thi Phuong Loan surrendered to the Nghe An Provincial Police Investigation Agency. Photo: Bao Nguyen

On October 16, 2017, Khanh texted Ms. V. saying that he had found Anh's address but asked her to transfer 60 million VND before providing the address. Because she had no money, Ms. V. did not transfer the money to Khanh.

However, not giving up the intention of defrauding Ms. V., on October 21, 2017, when she knew Ms. V. was going to Hanoi, Loan, posing as Ngo Duc Minh, lent Ms. V. 60 million VND to transfer to Khanh.

Loan's problem was to both defraud and appropriate money, and become Ms. V's "benefactor" by "lending money" to this victim.

A few days later, Minh claimed that he needed money urgently and asked Ms. V. to pay him back. Ms. V. transferred 60 million VND to Minh.

With her talent of imitating both male and female voices, Loan successfully tricked Ms. V. out of 60 million VND without Ms. V. suspecting anything. Because she did not know she was being tricked, Ms. V. continued to text and talk to Khanh every day.

In early December 2017, knowing that Ms. V. was looking for someone to do the tourist procedures in Korea, Loan continued to have the intention of fraud. Loan continued to use the name of Khanh to introduce another person named Nguyen Thanh Be (Loan pretended to be) who was able to do the procedures for people to travel to Korea.

Loan went to buy a phone, along with a sim card, then, under the name of Khanh, sent the phone number to Ms. V. to contact Bé. Bé "bragged" to Ms. V. that she could take people on a trip to Korea and asked her to deposit money first.

Believing that Mrs. Bé was real and capable of completing the procedures for traveling to Korea, Ms. V. found 16 people traveling to Korea to ask Bé to complete the procedures. Bé asked Ms. V. to pay 6,500 USD/person, including 1,500 USD deposit and 5,000 USD anti-escape fee, and urged Ms. V. to submit the procedures for the guests in time for the flight on December 19, 2017.

On December 9, 2017, Ms. V. transferred 16,000 USD (equivalent to 363,000,000 VND) to Nguyen Thanh Be's account. On December 11, 2017, Ms. V. brought the documents to Hanoi to submit to Be. However, Loan did not appear but hired another person to meet and receive the documents from Ms. V. Loan did not submit the 16 sets of documents to any company that is responsible for handling tourist procedures in Korea.

On December 18, to gain Ms. V's trust, Loan went online to get someone else's visa image, then used a technique to insert the names and photos of 4 people in the group and sent it to Ms. V with the notification that the visa was ready, then asked Ms. V to transfer the amount of 49,500 USD (equivalent to 1,123,650,000 VND) to an account under the name of Pham Thi Phuong Loan. Also on this day, Ms. V continued to transfer to Loan the amount of 45,540,000 VND, the fine amount because 2 people in the group withdrew their applications and did not travel to Korea anymore.

After appropriating more than 1.5 billion VND from Ms. V., December 19 was also the day Loan completely cut off contact with Ms. V. After many days of unsuccessfully trying to contact Pham Thi Phuong Loan, Ms. V. finally came to her senses, realized she had been scammed and filed a complaint with the Nghe An Provincial Police Department to denounce Loan's fraudulent behavior. On July 11, 2018, Pham Thi Phuong Loan surrendered to the Nghe An Provincial Police Department.

Bitter end to pay

The People's Court of Nghe An province has just opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Pham Thi Phuong Loan for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property. From early morning, Pham Thi Phuong Loan was escorted to court with a rather calm face. Because, this is the third time the trial has been held (Because the previous two times, the trial was postponed because the victim was not present).

Defendant Pham Thi Phuong Loan in court. Photo: Bao Nguyen

At the trial, Pham Thi Phuong Loan initially gave a evasive and insincere statement, trying to deny her guilt. However, after comparing the defendant’s initial statement at the Investigation Agency with the documents and evidence in the case file, the panel of judges determined that the indictment that the Provincial People’s Procuracy had filed against Pham Thi Phuong Loan for the crime of Fraudulent Appropriation of Property was correct in terms of the person and the crime. Defendant Pham Thi Phuong Loan remained silent, bowed her head, and mumbled, “I was wrong.”

Also at the trial, Ms. M. (V.'s biological mother), V.'s legal representative, requested the defendant Loan to return the money she had appropriated from her daughter. Ms. M. shared: "Just because of her impatience to find someone who had defrauded her of 300 million VND to pay to the travel company and her gullibility, my daughter continued to be the victim of Pham Thi Phuong Loan's property appropriation of more than 1 billion VND, and now she is in debt..."

The panel of judges determined that in this case, the amount of money that defendant Pham Thi Phuong Loan had appropriated from the victim was very large, the case was serious, infringed on the legal property rights of citizens, and affected public order and security in the area.

However, the victim was also partly at fault for not meeting the defendants in person but only talking through social networks, being "gullible", trusting, and transferring money to the defendants many times.

The jury also recommended that when traveling abroad or exporting labor, it is necessary to go through reputable companies to prepare documents and procedures, not through individuals. This is a warning lesson for many others to avoid being scammed and having their property stolen by bad guys.

Considering the entire case and the circumstances, the panel sentenced defendant Pham Thi Phuong Loan to 7 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property; forcing the defendant to return the remaining amount of money she had appropriated from the victim.