Spent more than 1 billion VND hiring a surrogate mother but received a child that was not related by blood

On the afternoon of December 22, the Criminal Police Department (Da Nang City Police) said that it had just coordinated with Thinh Dan Ward Police (Thai Nguyen Province) to serve the decisions to prosecute the accused, execute the arrest warrant to temporarily detain Nguyen Thi Dung (born in 1985, residing in Thinh Dan Ward, Thai Nguyen City) to investigate the act of "fraudulent appropriation of property".

The police have transferred the subject from Thai Nguyen to Da Nang to serve the investigation.

According to the initial investigation, around December 2021, knowing that Mr. NVN (65 years old, living in Da Nang) and his wife wanted to find a surrogate mother, Dung agreed to find an egg donor and a surrogate mother to give birth to a child for Mr. N. and his wife. Dung "bragged" that he had done it for many people before, so Mr. N. agreed.

According to Dung's request, the initial cost of finding an egg donor, ovulation stimulation drugs, egg retrieval, and embryo preparation is 150 million VND. On December 17, 2021, Mr. N. transferred 18 million VND to Dung in advance.

On January 22, 2022, Dung announced that he had found an egg donor named CTH (25 years old, residing in Phuc Tho district, Hanoi), and the related procedures were carried out at Thai Nguyen A Hospital. At Dung's request, on January 24, 2022, Mr. N. transferred 82 million VND.

In February 2022, Mr. N. went with Dung to Thai Nguyen to carry out the embryo transfer steps. This time, Mr. N. transferred 50 million VND in cash to Dung. On February 12, 2022, Dung announced that 6 good embryos were obtained and 2 more embryos were being raised, asking Mr. N. to transfer 118.5 million VND to the account designated by Dung, saying it was the cost of screening and raising the embryos.

As for Dung, after agreeing to be a surrogate mother for Mr. N., Dung met with CTH to complete the procedures and agreed on a price of 380 million VND. However, after going to the hospital to complete the egg stimulation procedure, the eggs did not meet the requirements, so she only gave H. about 90 million VND. Dung continued to contact 2 other women to carry out the "contract" but all were unsuccessful.

After unsuccessfully finding an egg donor, Dung stopped the process but did not inform Mr. N. of the truth, instead lying that everything was going smoothly.

In August 2022, Dung announced that the embryo implantation into the surrogate mother was successful and that she was 3 months pregnant. Dung asked Mr. N. to go to Thai Nguyen to meet the pregnant woman and go for an ultrasound at a private clinic, which showed that the fetus was a boy.

After that, Dung regularly texted to update the fetus' health status and sent ultrasound results to gain Mr. N's trust and transferred money many times as requested.

Around October 2022, Mr. N. discovered that Dung had many suspicious signs, so he asked Dung and the subject promised that if the child born after DNA testing was not Mr. N.'s, he would return the money.

On February 7, 2023, Dung announced that Ms. TH had given birth, but when taking a DNA test sample, the result was not related to Mr. N.

Although he did not fulfill his commitment, Dung used the entire amount of more than 1 billion VND he received from Mr. N. to invest in virtual currency and lost it all.