'Lost' red cover, lost billions because of believing in 'daughter's' drama

"Daughter" - the basket

Nguyen Thi Thu (born in 1977), residing in Hung Tay commune (Hung Nguyen district) and Mr. Tran Van Ngoc (residing in Hung Dong commune, Vinh city) have known each other since the end of 2017. At this time, because Thu borrowed money from many people and was unable to pay, she had the idea of ​​deceiving Mr. Ngoc's mother, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nh.

Knowing Ngoc wanted to work in the US, Thu went to Mrs. Nh's house and whispered that she had relatives in the US who could help her son work in the land of the free with a cost of 30,000 USD, a job as a nail technician (painting fingernails and toenails), with a monthly salary of 50 to 60 million VND. Meeting her wish, Mrs. Nh immediately agreed as if she had met a "benefactor".

In February 2018, Thu came to Mrs. Nh.'s house and said that she had to prove her assets if she wanted to apply for her son to work in the US. Mrs. Nh. presented her family's land use rights certificate (LURC) to complete the mortgage procedure at the bank. According to Thu, the mortgage was just a fake procedure (virtual) to legalize the documents, not a mortgage with money, and Mrs. Nh.'s mortgaged assets were not lost.

Faced with Thu's reasonable analysis, plus her own lack of knowledge about this issue, Ms. Nh. agreed and gave the land use right certificate of the plot of land in My Hau hamlet, Hung Dong commune, Vinh city under her and her husband's names so that Thu could contact the bank for mortgage.

Afraid that the bank and Mrs. Nh. would discover her fraudulent intentions, Thu told Mrs. Nh. that whenever she had transactions with the bank, she would introduce Thu as her daughter. Without suspecting Thu's shady actions, during the time of transactions with the bank to mortgage the property, Mrs. Nh. and her husband introduced Thu as their daughter.

Ms. Nh. believed Thu that the property mortgage was just a fake procedure (fake) to legalize the documents... (illustrative photo)

Once everything was settled, Thu went to a bank in Vinh City to contact them to complete the mortgage procedures. After the bank appraised the property and verified the relationship between Thu and Mrs. Nh. and her husband, the bank agreed and informed Thu that the land title property was mortgaged for VND800 million. In addition, the bank also asked Thu to tell Mrs. Nh. and her husband to come and sign the mortgage paperwork.

On February 9, 2018, Thu took Mrs. Nh. and her husband to the bank to sign the mortgage papers for the above-mentioned land plot. After Mrs. Nh. and her husband completed the procedures, Thu told them to go home first. Not long after Mrs. Nh. and her husband left, the bank announced that they would disburse the money in the afternoon. Thu and her husband went to the bank to get 800 million VND.

After defrauding a large amount of money, Thu took Ngoc to Saigon to do the paperwork to go to the US, but in fact, it was just to cover up for Mrs. Nh. and his wife. On February 14, 2018, while in Saigon, using the excuse that a relative from the US had returned to Vietnam and would take Ngoc to the US after Tet, Thu called Mrs. Nh. and told her to transfer an additional 200 million VND to cover the cost of applying for Ngoc to go to the US. On the same day, Mrs. Nh. transferred the above amount to Thu.

6 days later, after returning home, Thu continued to use the excuse of taking care of the procedures for Ngoc to go to the US to go to Mrs. Nh.'s house to get another 100 million VND. Thus, the total amount of money that Thu had appropriated from Mrs. Nh. was 1.1 billion VND.

"Old habits die hard"

Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a first-instance criminal trial of Nguyen Thi Thu for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property". At court, Thu admitted all the crimes as charged in the indictment. The female defendant stated that due to the pressure of debt and her inability to pay, she came up with a trick to defraud the victim, Ms. Nh. Knowing that Ms. Nh.'s son wanted to go to the US to work, the defendant came up with the above trick to defraud.

The defendant admitted that his family did not have any acquaintances living and working in the US as he had told the victim. All of the above actions were only to fool the victim into believing and following all of the defendant’s instructions. With the money he had embezzled, the defendant used it to pay off debts and for personal expenses.

Attending the trial, the victim said that because she believed the defendant was an acquaintance, and heard Thu's explanations were quite reasonable, she obeyed. Therefore, in all her meetings with the bank, Ms. Nh. affirmed that Thu was her daughter. Only when the incident was exposed did she realize the true face of her "daughter" - the "benefactor" of the family.

Defendant Nguyen Thi Thu. Photo: Tran Vu

In a short time, Mrs. Nh. and her husband "lost" their biggest asset, the land use right registration certificate and a large sum of cash. Since being deceived by Thu, the family's life has been completely turned upside down. Every month, she has to bear a large amount of bank interest while the family's life is still difficult. In court, the victim requested the defendant to return the money he had appropriated in order to quickly get the red book out of the bank.

In the presence of the victim, the defendant promised to quickly remedy the consequences. At the same time, she asked for a reduced sentence so that she could soon return to her family and start a new life. Nguyen Thi Thu expressed remorse for her actions.

The panel of judges determined that the defendant's actions were dangerous to society. Because of greed, the defendant used all means to defraud and illegally appropriate money from others. Not long ago, specifically in August 2019, the defendant was sentenced to 9 months in prison (with a suspended sentence) by the Vinh City People's Court for the crime of Fraudulent Appropriation of Property, but did not take that as a lesson and continued to reoffend. That shows the defendant's disregard for the law. Therefore, a strict penalty is needed to have a deterrent and general prevention effect.

Considering the case as a whole, the panel sentenced Nguyen Thi Thu to 15 years in prison for “fraudulent appropriation of property”. In terms of civil matters, the defendant was required to compensate the victim a total of VND 1,116 billion (including principal and bank interest).