In debt, the guy rented a self-driving car and pawned it.

On August 19, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened the first instance trial of defendant Nguyen Ngoc Sam (35 years old), residing in Vinh Phu ward, Nghe An, for the crime ofFraudulent appropriation of property.

According to the case file, due to business losses and heavy debts, Nguyen Ngoc Sam was no longer able to pay his debts by the end of 2024. Therefore, Sam came up with the idea of ​​​​fraudulently renting a self-driving car and then pawning it to get money to pay off the debt and spend for personal expenses.

On October 28, 2024, Sam went to a car rental company to discuss renting a self-driving car. The two parties agreed to rent for 1 month, the rental price was 700,000 VND/day with the commitment: "It is forbidden to sub-rent the car or hand over the car to another unit for use in any form; If the car is pawned, it will be prosecuted before the law for property appropriation; after the rental period, the car must be returned to the owner in its original condition...".

After renting the car, Sam contacted a man named Hung in Thanh Hoa province to mortgage the car to borrow 120 million VND. When checking the documents, Hung saw that the car was under someone else's name, so he asked Sam about the origin of the car. At this time, Sam lied that this was his cousin's car and gave Sam full authority to manage and use the car. Trusting Hung, he agreed to lend him 120 million VND. Sam spent all this money on personal expenses.

The rental period expired but Sam did not return the car, so the lessor repeatedly asked to return the car. At this time, Sam gave the excuse that he was on a business trip, then asked to continue renting the car. On March 2, 2025, when he learned that Sam was arrested, the lessor filed a complaint against Sam for fraud and property appropriation.

Using the above tricks, the investigation agency determined that from October 2024 to February 6, 2025, Nguyen Ngoc Sam committed 5 frauds to appropriate property, the total value of the property that Sam appropriated was more than 1.4 billion VND.

At the trial, the defendant admitted his crime. The defendant stated that because he was in debt and had borrowed money online, he could no longer pay his debts, so he defrauded the victims.

After being arrested, the defendant influenced his family to pay all the money to the victims. The victims filed a petition for a reduced sentence for the defendant.

Considering these are mitigating circumstances for the defendant, the People's Court sentenced Nguyen Ngoc Sam to 7 years in prison for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property.