Calling for capital contribution to buy land, former ward official sentenced to life in prison
(Baonghean.vn) - With the trick of calling for capital contributions to buy land, promising to make a profit from investing in buying and selling land, Le Van Binh defrauded and appropriated the assets of 9 victims with a total amount of more than 29.5 billion VND.
On March 28, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Le Van Binh (born in 1970, residing in Nghi Hoa ward, Cua Lo town, Nghe An) - former Captain of the Urban Order Management Team of Cua Lo town; former Party Secretary, Chairman of Nghi Hoa ward People's Committee for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".
According to the case, due to needing money to pay debts and for personal expenses, from September 2019 to April 2021, Le Van Binh used many fraudulent tricks such as: Calling on victims to contribute money to buy land but did not buy; calling on others to contribute capital for plots of land, sold but still calling on victims to contribute capital; selling plots of land to others but still calling for capital contributions to buy land to appropriate money from 9 victims in Nghe An, Ha Tinh provinces, and Ho Chi Minh City.
The total amount of money that Le Van Binh appropriated from 9 victims was more than 29.5 billion VND. Of which, the person who was most appropriated was more than 8 billion VND, the person who was least was nearly 700 million VND. The amount of money that Binh appropriated was used to pay debts, pay a part to the victims, deposit money to buy land, and exchange for cash. However, when transferring to pay debts and deposit money to buy land, Binh did not tell them that the source of the money was from his crime.
At the trial, defendant Le Van Binh admitted to committing the crime as charged in the indictment. Defendant Binh confessed that because he was in debt, he gave false information to the victim in order to get money to buy another plot of land for profit.
The defendant said that after going bankrupt, he sold all his assets and houses to pay back the money to the victims, but due to the large amount of money, he could not pay it all. The defendant asked the victims to only pay the principal debt but not the interest. At the same time, he asked the court to reduce his sentence so that he could return to the community soon to work to pay back the victims. At the trial, most of the victims asked for a reduction in the defendant's sentence.
Considering the case as a whole, the panel sentenced defendant Le Van Binh to life in prison for “fraudulent appropriation of property”. In civil matters, the defendant was required to return all the money he had appropriated from the victims.
