Addicted to games, a group of young people forged documents, mortgaged cars and appropriated billions of dong.

Nghe An Provincial People's Court has just opened a first-instance criminal trial to try the defendants: Nguyen Van Trinh (born in 1992), residing in Hai Duong province; Nguyen Ba Duy (born in 2004), Dinh Trong Cong (born in 1997) and Hoang Danh Quang (born in 1998), all residing in Yen Thanh district, Nghe An province; Doan Anh Duc (born in 1998), residing in Lang Son province for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property andUsing fake documents of organizations.

Defendants at trial. Photo: Tran Vu

Due to not having a stable job and needing money for personal expenses and playing games on social networks, from the end of April 2021 to July 2021, Nguyen Van Trinh, Nguyen Ba Duy, Hoang Danh Quang, Dinh Trong Cong and Doan Anh Duc discussed and agreed to let Trinh go online to order fake documents such as fake ID cards and driver's licenses to rent self-driving cars and then pawn them for personal expenses.

After renting the car, Trinh continued to make fake car sales contracts, fake car registration papers and then pawned them.

Specifically, on April 27, 2021, Trinh and Duy used a fake driver's license under Duy's name to rent a Mazda3 car from Mr. HVĐ. After renting the car, Trinh and Duy made a sales contract between the car owner and Trinh, who then pawned it to another person for 420 million VND.

On May 8, 2021, Trinh, Duy, Quang and Duc used Trinh's fake driver's license to rent a Kia Cerato car from Mr. MKT. Then, these subjects made a fake car registration and pawned it to Ms. PTH for 300 million VND.

Using similar tricks, the subjects used fake driver's licenses and fake vehicle registration papers to mortgage 6 cars, with a total value of nearly 3 billion VND.

At the trial, the defendants admitted to their crimes. Trinh said that due to lack of money to play games, he and his accomplices planned to defraud and appropriate property.

After considering the role of each defendant in the case, the People's Court sentenced Nguyen Van Trinh to 18 years in prison for two crimes: Fraudulent appropriation of property and Using fake documents of an organization.

Also for the above two crimes, the court sentenced defendant Nguyen Ba Duy to 10 years in prison; defendant Hoang Danh Quang to 16 years in prison; defendant Dinh Trong Cong to 15 years in prison; defendant Doan Anh Duc to 17 years in prison.