Exposing the 'money-collecting' trick from people pretending to be officials

From the complaints…
At the end of 2018, the Criminal Police Department received a complaint from Ms. MH in Huong Khe town, Huong Khe district (Ha Tinh) about being scammed by a subject named Le Quang Hoa and appropriating more than 200 million VND. According to Ms. MH, in 2017, through an acquaintance, she got to know Hoa. Knowing that Ms. MH's daughter had just graduated and was looking for a job, Le Quang Hoa introduced himself as an officer of the Department of Home Affairs and could "help" her get a job at the Nghe An Economic Project Board under the Department of Planning and Investment of Nghe An province for 500 million VND.
Trusting Hoa, Mrs. MH gave Hoa money and her daughter's job application, but after the appointment, the man still did not report to work. Mrs. MH called to ask, but Hoa avoided and cut off contact. Knowing that his actions were exposed, Hoa returned 270 million VND to Mrs. MH so that the victim would not report to the police and promised to return the remaining amount. However, after that, Hoa continued to "disappear".

At the same time, a number of complaints were sent to the police investigation agencies of several districts in the area such as Con Cuong, Nghi Loc, ... with the same content of the complaint as Ms. MH. All of them lost money in the form of running errands masterminded by Le Quang Hoa. Assessing this as an organized fraud case, the Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Provincial Police coordinated with the police of the districts to verify and clarify the accused.
The main suspect is Le Quang Hoa (born in 1980), residing in Bong Khe commune, Con Cuong district, Nghe An province. It is known that at the time of the incident, Le Quang Hoa was unemployed. However, despite being a vagabond and having no stable job, Le Quang Hoa built a perfect cover, had close relationships with some people with social positions, and could get jobs. By "selling saliva", Hoa appropriated billions of dong from many people in need of jobs.
Not only strangers like Mrs. MH but Hoa also scammed,appropriation of propertyof his brothers and friends. Mr. Nguyen KT (residing in Nghi Loc district) was a high school classmate of Hoa. During a meeting in July 2017, when Hoa introduced himself as currently working at the Personnel Organization Department, Nghe An Department of Home Affairs, and could apply for a job or transfer work for anyone in need, Mr. T. immediately trusted his classmate without hesitation.
Mr. T. asked Hoa to transfer his sister-in-law, a teacher in Dong Thap province, to work as a teacher in Nghi Loc district. Hoa offered a price of 300 million VND.
On August 25, 2017, at Hoa's request, Mr. T. transferred his sister-in-law's job transfer application to Hoa. Although after receiving the application, Hoa kept it at home, he texted Mr. T. saying that the application had been approved by the Nghe An Department of Education and Training, so he asked him to transfer money to Hoa to complete the procedure. On August 29, 2017, Mr. T. transferred 300 million VND to Hoa's account. After appropriating the above amount, Hoa spent it all on personal expenses.
On July 26, 2018, Hoa continued to lie to Mr. T. that his sister-in-law had been specially considered for a job transfer and asked him to pay an additional 40 million VND to apply for a decision to accept the job. Mr. T. continued to transfer 40 million VND to Hoa. Le Quang Hoa appropriated a total of 340 million VND from Mr. T.
Not only that, Hoa also "bragged" that he was a police officer, working in Vinh City, so he had many relationships. Having known each other for many years, every time Ms. Nguyen Thuy H. (Vinh City) asked for help, Hoa always helped her wholeheartedly, so Ms. H. trusted him very much. In early 2017, knowing that Ms. H. had a younger sister who needed a job, Hoa expressed his desire to help her get a job at the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development at a cost of 300 million VND.
Trusting Hoa, at her own home, Ms. H. handed over all the documents and the amount of 300 million VND and received from Hoa a promise that a decision would be made around May 2018. However, when the deadline came, there was no job and she could not contact Hoa, Ms. H. realized that she had been scammed and filed a complaint with the police.
The investigation agency determined that, with the above tricks, from April 2016 to December 2018, Le Quang Hoa defrauded and appropriated the property of 11 people in Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces with a total amount of nearly 3 billion VND.
…to blatant tricks
In March 2019, after verifying and consolidating evidence, the Criminal Police Department, Nghe An Provincial Police issued an arrest warrant for Le Quang Hoa to serve the investigation. At the investigation agency, Hoa initially confessed to appropriating the victims' property under the guise of applying for a job.

Due to not having a stable job and having personal debts, when he learned about the recruitment policy for civil servants and public employees in departments, agencies and branches under the People's Committee of Nghe An province, Hoa had the intention of defrauding and appropriating property. To carry out this intention, Hoa pretended to be an officer of the Department of Home Affairs of Nghe An province or an officer of the Vinh City Police Department, had close relationships with people with positions and powers in departments, agencies and branches of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, so he could apply for jobs for many people in state agencies in the province, and request job transfers from provinces and cities nationwide to Nghe An.
The subject has no stable job but always appears polite and successful. To make it easier for victims to fall into the trap, Le Quang Hoa always shows on social networks that he has relationships and acquaintances with people in positions by taking photos with them or regularly posting pictures of a full, prosperous life, going to coffee shops with many people of social status. Not only that, to polish his cover, Le Quang Hoa did not hesitate to spend money to rent a luxury car to drive himself when meeting customers.
According to Mr. Pham Van Cong (a neighbor of Hoa's), in his hometown, Hoa was quite intelligent, sociable, and cheerful. Hoa's parents were farmers. However, because he studied and worked elsewhere, Hoa spent very little time in the locality. When the incident happened, many people in the neighborhood were also extremely surprised.
In court, the defendant admitted to the crime as charged in the indictment. Regarding the amount of money he had embezzled from the victims, Hoa said he had spent it on personal expenses, but did not elaborate. This made the victims attending the trial extremely upset.
Speaking in court, the victims demanded that Le Quang Hoa return the money he had appropriated. Many victims said that in order to have money to pay Hoa, they had to borrow money from everywhere, and are currently paying interest, their lives have been turned upside down, and they are miserable because they believed the scammer. It is known that the victims in the case all knew and were friends with Hoa. Therefore, being blatantly scammed by Hoa made the victims even more upset.
Mr. Nguyen Van Q., who teaches Hoa's son, shared: "When I heard that Hoa would help my sister find a job, I trusted her very much. During that time, we even sat down to eat and socialize with each other many times, but I didn't expect Hoa to deceive his son's teacher."
It is known that in 2008, Le Quang Hoa was sentenced by Vinh City People's Court to 9 months in prison with a suspended sentence for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".
The panel of judges determined that the defendant’s actions violated the law. Because of greed, he regardless of defrauding and appropriating the property of many people. The amount of money that the defendant appropriated from the victims was very large. However, the victims were also partly at fault for trusting and not considering carefully, leading to “losing both money and property”. Considering the case as a whole, the panel of judges sentenced Le Quang Hoa to 17 years in prison for “fraudulent appropriation of property” and forced the defendant to return all the money he had appropriated from the victims.
Through this, the People's Court also recommends that people in general take this case as a lesson, raise vigilance to avoid being taken advantage of by bad guys.