A man in Nghe An swindled land from auction, split the title and appropriated more than 7 billion VND.

On September 6, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a trial of defendants Le Thanh Hai (born 1983), residing in Truong Thi ward, Vinh city and Le Kien Trung (born 1979), residing in Le Loi ward, Vinh city, for the crimes of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and "Using fake documents of agencies and organizations"; defendant Tran Dien Thuong (born 1976), residing in Nghi Phu commune, Vinh city, was prosecuted for the crime of "Forgery of documents of agencies and organizations".

According to the indictment, knowing that Thuong had connections to fake documents, Le Thanh Hai had the intention to defraud and appropriate other people's property. The method Hai used was to receive documents to transfer land titles, separate land plots, change land use purposes, and receive deposits to reserve places for people who wanted to buy land planned for auction in Nghi Yen and Nghi Xuan communes, Nghi Loc district.

Knowing that Le Kien Trung (his uncle's son) used to work in the real estate field and had many relationships, Hai discussed and assigned Trung the task of finding people who needed to do land procedures and wanted to buy land through auctions to introduce to Hai, and would be paid.

To build trust and deceive many people, after receiving money and promising to do the procedures as requested by the people, Hai, through Thuong, made fake land titles and gave them to the people. As for Thuong, through social networks, hired someone to make fake land titles and gave them to Hai. After that, Hai gave them to Trung to give to the victims to take their money.

Using the above tricks, from December 2021 to April 2022, Hai hired Thuong to make 6 fake documents, which were land use right certificates (fake covers) to carry out 9 cases of fraud, appropriation of property and 12 cases of fraud, appropriation of property through the form of deceiving people to receive deposits to reserve land for planning and auction.

The investigation agency determined that the total amount of money Hai and Trung defrauded and appropriated from the victims' assets was nearly 7.3 billion VND.

Of which, through the form of fraud in procedures for granting land use right certificates, dividing plots and changing land use purposes, it is more than 3.4 billion; Through the form of receiving deposits to reserve land for auction planning, it is nearly 3.9 billion.

At the trial, the defendants admitted to the crimes as charged in the indictment. At the same time, the defendants presented a number of circumstances to request a reduction in their sentences.

The panel of judges determined that in this case, the defendant Hai was the initiator and directly carried out the fraud using sophisticated methods. The defendant has a bad personal history, having been sentenced to prison many times, so he needs to be severely punished. Therefore, the court sentenced Le Thanh Hai to 20 years in prison for Fraudulent appropriation of property, and 4 years in prison for Using fake documents of agencies and organizations; The total sentence is 24 years in prison.

Sentenced defendant Le Kien Trung to 16 years in prison for Fraudulent appropriation of property, 3 years in prison for Using fake documents of agencies and organizations; Total sentence is 19 years in prison. Defendant Tran Dien Thuong was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison for Forging documents of agencies and organizations.