Another online hui worth tens of billions of dong collapsed in Nghe An

Shocking Vinh city

On November 29, many people came to Nghe An Provincial Police to file a complaint against Ms. Vo Thi Thu Hien (35 years old, Vinh City), for "Abuse of trust, appropriation of property". Hien is the owner of a clothing store on Nguyen Van Cu Street, and also the owner of a very large-scale online hui chain in Vinh City for many years. This woman was denounced by her own members right after she declared the hui broke.

According to the reporter's investigation, up to this point, 105 people have confirmed that Hien owes them money in the hui with a total amount of more than 36 billion VND. The least is a few tens of millions of VND, the most is up to nearly 4 billion VND. Meanwhile, the online ward and hui line set up by Hien has nearly 300 participants.

“That is not all the statistics. We are sure there are many more victims,” said Ms. NTT (26 years old), one of the people who accused Ms. Hien of fraud and property appropriation. Ms. T. works as a clothing seller at the market and is owed more than 90 million VND by Hien. “For a small business owner like me, this amount of money is huge. I can’t hide it from my husband, and I’m scared to tell him. I haven’t eaten or slept in the past few days because I don’t know what to say to my family,” T. sobbed.

Two of the ward members shared with Nghe An Newspaper reporters. Photo: PV

Ms. T. said she joined the ward run by Ms. Vo Thi Thu Hien since 2020. She has participated in many different ward games, but up to now, she has not finished playing one ward game worth 10 million VND/month (13 games) and she has not received the ward money from this game. The total amount Ms. T. transferred to Ms. Hien in this ward game is 90 million VND.

On November 20, Ms. T. learned that the ward owner, Ms. Hien, had declared the ward bankrupt, had not paid for many days, and was late in paying the ward to many people. "In addition, Ms. Hien did not inform the players in order to appropriate the ward's assets and money. We have also worked with Ms. Hien many times about the ward's bankruptcy information and also confirmed that Ms. Hien was unable to pay," Ms. T. said, adding that later, the ward members investigated and found out that Ms. Hien had used fake accounts on Facebook to compete with the ward and colluded with a group of players to raise the ward's prices in order to take the ward's money and appropriate the property.

According to the reporter's research, Ms. Hien has set up hundreds of ward prizes, with different amounts of money. Each prize will be created by Hien in a chat group on Facebook or Zalo, with a different name. There are daily wards, and monthly wards. The ward members are mostly businessmen and traders in Vinh City and neighboring areas. All exchanges take place on chat groups, so the ward members hardly know each other and have never met in real life. When the ward is drawn, the person with the highest bid will be drawn. The auction profit will be divided equally among the ward members. "During the epidemic and social distancing, many people participate in this type of lottery. Most of them are businessmen, there are 2 reasons to rush to participate despite knowing the risks. In addition to the interest rate, this is also a place to quickly rotate business capital, without having to go to the bank. For businessmen like us, it is also convenient," said Ms. NTHM (27 years old, living in Cua Lo town). Ms. M. is the person who Ms. Hien owes the ward more than 1 billion VND.

Not a new trick

After Ms. Hien declared that the ward was bankrupt and could no longer pay, the ward members discovered many suspicious points in the operation of this ward and hui network. According to the denunciations of the ward members, there were several Facebook names participating in most of the ward slots owned by Ms. Hien. Notably, these Facebook accounts were all auctioned at high prices and of course, were all picked up by the ward first. "We suspect that these accounts are fake accounts, created by Hien to bid for the ward in order to appropriate. And if they are real accounts, they are also close people who colluded to appropriate," said a ward member who is in debt of more than 200 million VND.

For many days now, after the announcement of the ward collapse, ward members have often come to Mrs. Hien's house to question her. Here, Mrs. Hien said that the ward collapse was due to those familiar accounts owing her 20 billion VND. "According to our statistics, at least 105 people have reported that Mrs. Hien owes her 36 billion VND. Mrs. Hien said that those people are "running" her 20 billion VND, so where is the other 16 billion VND? We questioned them but the ward leader could not explain. Not to mention the people who snatched the hui and ran like Mrs. Hien, it is unclear whether it is real or virtual," this ward member added.

An online hui owner was recently prosecuted by Vinh City Police. Photo: PV

To clarify the accusations of these people, the reporter tried many times but still could not contact the owner of the hui.

In fact, this is not a new trick. Just over a month ago, Vinh City Police prosecuted and temporarily detained Tran Thi Phuong Thuy (37 years old, residing in Block 2, Truong Thi Ward) for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property". Before being arrested, Thuy was also the owner of a large-scale online hui and swindling network.

During her activities, Thuy was accused of using virtual accounts she created to bid for the opening of a gambling ring. After several times of bidding, when Thuy's virtual accounts won many times in the opening of a gambling ring, she declared the gambling ring bankrupt to appropriate the property.

Typically, on August 8, Thuy opened a ward with 12 slots, ward members participated via Facebook chat group to discuss and bid for the ward opening. Of the 12 slots, 2 slots were virtual accounts created by Thuy. Thuy then conducted the ward opening auctions with the amount of 100 million VND/slot. Before the auction, each player had to pay Thuy the amount of 200 million VND for the first 2 slots. Because Thuy was the ward owner, she would receive the first ward slot of 1.1 billion VND without having to bid for the ward. After that, Thuy organized the ward auction for the participants to collect interest. The person who bid with the highest interest rate would receive the ward but had to pay interest to the unsuccessful bidder.

Thuy then organized a competition to get the second place in the Facebook chat group. In this round, the virtual account "Khanh Linh" created by Thuy "won" with the highest interest of nearly 7.5 million VND and received 1.2 billion VND. "Khanh Linh" had to pay interest for the remaining 11 rounds with the amount of nearly 7.5 million VND/round. Thus, in this second round, "Khanh Linh" received 1,118,050,000 VND.

3 days later, on August 11, Thuy organized a ward auction to get the 3rd place. Each participant had to pay Thuy 92,550,000 VND. The account "Khanh Linh" had already received the 2nd place, so she still had to pay the full 100,000,000 VND without receiving any interest from the next auctions. In this auction, the virtual account "Moon Dinh" created by Thuy "won" with the highest interest of 4,000,000 VND and was given the 3rd place: 1,200,000,000 VND - (4,000,000 VND x 10) = 1,160,000,000 VND. On August 14, 2021, Thuy organized a ward auction to get the 4th place. Each participant had to pay Thuy 96,000,000 VND. As for the accounts “Khanh Linh” and “Moon Dinh”, because they have received the previous ward money, they still have to pay the full amount of 100,000,000 VND without receiving the interest from the next bets. In this bet, the account “Thu Huong Nguyen” bets with the highest interest of 4,750,000 VND and gets the 4th bet: 1,200,000,000 VND - (4,750,000 VND x 9) = 1,157,250,000 VND.

With similar tricks, Thuy organized 3 more auctions. On August 24, she declared the auction closed and did not organize auctions for participants who had not yet received the money. In just one auction, Thuy appropriated more than 6 billion VND from the members. Meanwhile, the investigation results showed that from the end of 2018 until the time of her arrest, Thuy participated in hundreds of auctions with similar fraud methods...