A man in Nghe An province defrauded people of over 7 billion VND by fraudulently selling and splitting land titles at auctions.
(Baonghean.vn) - Hai claimed he could successfully bid on planned land plots, as well as legalize the merging and splitting of land use right certificates and change land use purposes for those in need. Along with his accomplices, Hai defrauded and misappropriated nearly 7.3 billion VND from numerous victims.
On September 6th, the Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a trial for defendants Le Thanh Hai (born in 1983), residing in Truong Thi Ward, Vinh City, and Le Kien Trung (born in 1979), residing in Le Loi Ward, Vinh City, on charges of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and "Using forged documents of agencies and organizations"; defendant Tran Dien Thuong (born in 1976), residing in Nghi Phu Commune, Vinh City, was prosecuted for "Forging documents of agencies and organizations".
According to the indictment, knowing that Thuong had connections in forging documents, Le Thanh Hai conceived the idea of defrauding and appropriating property from others. Hai's scheme involved accepting applications to handle land title transfers, land subdivision, land use conversion, and receiving deposits from people interested in purchasing land for auction in Nghi Yen and Nghi Xuan communes, Nghi Loc district.
Knowing that Le Kien Trung (his cousin) had previously worked in the real estate sector and had many connections, Hai discussed the matter with Trung and assigned him the task of finding people who needed to complete land-related procedures or wanted to buy land through auctions, and then introducing them to Hai, for which he would be paid a commission.
To build trust and deceive more people, after receiving money and promising to complete the procedures as requested by the people, Hai, through Thuong, created fake land titles and gave them to the people. Thuong, in turn, hired someone through social media to create fake land titles and then handed them over to Hai. Hai then gave them to Trung to give to the victims, thereby defrauding them of their money.
Using the above methods, from December 2021 to April 2022, Hai hired Thuong to create 6 fake land use right certificates (fake covers) to carry out 9 cases of fraud and property appropriation, and 12 cases of fraud and property appropriation through the form of fraudulently receiving deposits to reserve land plots for auction.
Investigators determined that the total amount of money Hai and Trung defrauded and misappropriated from the victims was nearly 7.3 billion VND.
Specifically, over 3.4 billion VND was obtained through fraudulent procedures related to obtaining land use rights certificates, subdividing land, and changing land use purposes; and nearly 3.9 billion VND was obtained through receiving deposits to reserve land for auction in planned projects.
At the trial, the defendants admitted to the crimes as charged in the indictment. At the same time, they presented several mitigating 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 fraudulent act using sophisticated methods. The defendant has a bad criminal record, having been sentenced to prison multiple times, therefore a strict punishment is necessary. Consequently, the court sentenced Le Thanh Hai to 20 years in prison for the crime of Fraudulent Appropriation of Property and 4 years in prison for the crime of Using Forged Documents of an Agency or Organization; the total combined sentence is 24 years in prison.
The court sentenced defendant Le Kien Trung to 16 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property, and 3 years in prison for using forged documents of an agency or organization; the total sentence is 19 years in prison. Defendant Tran Dien Thuong received a sentence of 4 years and 6 months in prison for forging documents of an agency or organization.
