Prosecution of Lien Ket Viet Company leader for defrauding more than 45,000 people

In just over 1 year of operation, the board of directors of Lien Ket Viet Company has defrauded more than 45,000 people of over 1,900 billion VND from multi-level marketing activities...

Conducting an investigation into the business activities of Vietnam Production and Trade Link Joint Stock Company (Viet Link), the Ministry of Public Security's investigation police agency has initiated a case of Fraudulent appropriation of property, prosecuted the accused, executed a search warrant, and temporarily detained 7 leaders and general agents of this company for the above crime.

The defendants in temporary detention include Le Xuan Giang (Le Xuan Ha), Chairman of the Board of Directors; Nguyen Thi Thuy, Le Van Tu, both Deputy General Directors; Nguyen Xuan Truong, Vu Thi Hong Dung, Le Thanh Son, all in the group promoting, propagating, and developing the multi-level system in the provinces; Trinh Xuan Sang, in charge of information technology of this company.

Defendant Le Xuan Giang (in military uniform) at a conference of Lien Ket Viet. nh:lkv.com.vn

Hire people to develop fraudulent multi-level marketing systems

Defendant Le Xuan Giang was identified as the head and founder of Lien Ket Viet Company; at the same time, this defendant is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of the Joint Stock Company of the Ministry of National Defense Medical Equipment Group.

The business items of Lien Ket Viet Company are quite poor, only a few cleaning machines, health care machines and functional foods and are conducted in the form of multi-level sales to defraud consumers.

In April 2014, Le Xuan Giang signed a contract with Nguyen Thi Thuy to hire the "Business Management, Development, and Sales" Group so that Thuy's group could carry out sales promotion tasks.

Specifically, this group is responsible for organizing the development of the business system of Lien Ket Viet Company, consulting on customer attraction, organizing events (this cost is paid by Giang); consulting on the implementation of trade promotion programs, advising on development strategies, business methods...

To carry out the work, Thuy's group was given a code to lead the entire affiliate business system. These affiliates are actually people who pay to buy product codes under the multi-level form of Lien Ket Viet.

This group also has exclusive rights to the collaborator system and enjoys permanent benefits in the system. To carry out the above tasks, defendant Giang's company must pay Thuy's group 25 million VND/month and 300,000 VND for each product code generated in the Lien Ket Viet Company system.

Impersonating a Ministry of Defense enterprise, receiving fake certificates of merit

After a period of time allowing Thuy's group to develop the market with a multi-level marketing network covering dozens of provinces and cities, in June 2015, Le Xuan Giang appointed Nguyen Thi Thuy as Deputy General Director in charge of the company's business.

Ceremony to receive fake certificates of merit set up by the Lien Ket Viet Leadership Board - Photo: lkv.com.vn

When they had the title, Thuy and the members of the group became more reckless in their business dealings, pretending to be a business under the Ministry of National Defense, and organizing a grand ceremony to receive certificates of merit from the Prime Minister, but in fact, they were forged by the defendants... to create prestige to fool the people.

In addition, Thuy wrote propaganda scripts including promotional and competitive programs such as: Great Victory Rose, Humanitarian Rose, Success Horse... to promote the payment of commissions at record high levels, even giving houses and cars as rewards... to agents.

In fact, these huge bonuses are just taking money from people who pay into the system later to pay commissions to people who pay first. Thuy also determined to attract people to join her multi-level marketing system with a commission rate of up to 65%, exceeding the Government's regulation of 40%.

Defendant Le Thanh Son is advertising for the company on television.

From these expansions, Thuy organized a series of conferences, seminars to promote and expand the network to 21 provinces and cities across the country, attracting and enticing many people to participate in buying product codes and paying money to appropriate them. In addition to the headquarters in Hanoi, the company also has a branch in Ho Chi Minh City and representative offices in 19 provinces and cities.

During the investigation of the case, the police determined that from June 2014 to July 2015, Thuy and the group members Trinh Xuan Sang, Le Thanh Son, Nguyen Xuan Truong, and Vu Hong Dung had developed a giant multi-level system with more than 45,000 participants, earning a total of over 1,900 billion VND.

Notably, most of the individuals who participated in purchasing the product codes did not receive the goods but instead accumulated bonus points to receive commissions according to the instructions from Thuy's group. Through system development, this group received remuneration and commissions of up to nearly 44 billion VND.

When the investigation agency got involved, the total balance in Lien Ket Viet's account was only over 45.5 billion VND. The investigation agency determined that the defendants had used multi-level marketing business activities to defraud over 1,900 billion VND.

According to zing