Nghe An: Impersonating bank officials and forging documents to commit inter-provincial fraud amounting to tens of billions of VND.

- The Investigation Department of the Nghe An Provincial Police has just issued a decision to initiate a criminal case, indict the suspect, and execute the temporary detention order against Bui Huu Thang (born in 1986), residing in Trung Do Ward (Vinh City), for the crime of fraud and appropriation of property.

In April 2020, many residents in Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces submitted complaints to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Nghe An Provincial Police. The complaints all focused on accusing Bui Huu Thang, a bank employee in Nghe An, of embezzling over 10 billion VND. After a period of intensive investigation, the Criminal Investigation Department established a special task force to investigate and clarify the case. On August 18, 2020, the task force arrested and detained Bui Huu Thang.

The suspect, Bui Huu Thang. Photo: Duc Vu

Initially, investigators determined that from 2013 to 2018, Bui Huu Thang impersonated an employee of the Vietnam Foreign Trade Bank (Vietcombank), offering people information about interest rates three times higher than normal, exclusively for bank employees, in order to deceive them. Believing him to be a real bank employee, many people gave Thang money. Each time he met with people, Thang presented various documents such as "receipts," "capital mobilization records," "debit conversion and repayment agreements," etc., all bearing red stamps and signatures of the Director of Vietcombank, to gain the victims' trust. In reality, all the documents and stamps were forged by Thang.

A resident of Nghi Xuan district (Ha Tinh province) stated in a complaint filed with the police: In 2015, he went abroad for work and saved some money to send back to Vietnam for his wife. While there, relatives knew Bui Huu Thang. Believing Thang to be a bank employee, he deposited 1.5 billion VND with him to earn high interest. In 2018, after repeatedly failing to repay the principal and interest, he realized he had been scammed.

During the investigation, authorities also uncovered the forgery of documents and seals by Bui Huu Thang, a former graduate of the Faculty of Information Technology, Vinh University. Thang used the internet to create forged documents and seals of the Vietnam Foreign Trade Bank.

For a long period, from 2013 to 2018, Thang deceived his family members into believing he was a bank employee. Initially, the investigating agency has proven that the amount of money Thang defrauded was over 4.5 billion VND.

Bui Huu Thang forged the bank's documents and seals.

Bui Huu Thang also forged a fixed-term savings passbook with over 19 billion VND from the Vietnam Foreign Trade Bank. The purpose of this was to gain the trust and reassurance of his family regarding his "fake" work.

Currently, the case is under investigation and being expanded. The Office of the Criminal Investigation Agency announces that anyone who is a victim related to Bui Huu Thang should contact the Criminal Investigation Agency, Nghe An Provincial Police, and speak with the investigating officer in charge, Captain Nguyen Dinh Hanh, at phone number: 0977367920.