A female con artist impersonated the Deputy Editor-in-Chief, defrauding people of over 12 billion VND.
(Baonghean.vn) - Van Anh hired someone to forge a journalist's ID card, boasted about being the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of an online newspaper, and claimed to have extensive connections with departments and agencies in Nghe An and at the central level, thus enabling her to convert agricultural land to residential land.
On September 20th, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a trial to hear the case against defendant Nguyen Thi Van Anh (born in 1976), residing in Dien Hanh commune, Dien Chau district, for the crimes of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and "Using forged official seals of agencies or organizations.
According to the indictment, in early 2021, due to needing money for personal expenses, Van Anh hired an unknown person (whose identity and address are unclear) online to make a fake journalist's ID card and a fake inspector's ID card bearing her name and photo.
After obtaining a fake press card, Van Anh showed it to many people and introduced herself as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Central Vietnam regional online portal of a major newspaper, claiming to have extensive connections with departments and agencies in Nghe An province and at the central level, thus enabling her to change the land use purpose from agricultural land to residential land.
To gain the victims' trust, Van Anh claimed to have successfully converted many agricultural land plots into rural residential land; or, when she saw that the victims wanted to convert a large land plot but lacked the funds, Van Anh offered to jointly purchase it and contribute to the conversion costs.
Once the victims fully trusted her, Van Anh quoted the conversion fee and the amount of money required as a deposit. She then hired someone to create 28 fake land use right certificates to give to the victims, receiving the remaining amount as previously agreed upon.
Using the above scheme, from May 2021 to April 2022, Van Anh defrauded five victims of a total of over 12.5 billion VND. Her actions were exposed at the end of April 2022.
At the trial, the defendant confessed to the crimes as charged in the indictment. The defendant admitted to forging press cards and then defrauding many people. Once the victims trusted him, the defendant had someone forge land ownership certificates ("red certificates") to give to them.
Regarding the embezzled money, the defendant confessed to buying real estate, cars, gold, undergoing cosmetic procedures, and spending it all on personal expenses.
Before the trial, the defendant had compensated the victims with a total of more than 5.5 billion VND.
Considering that in this case the defendant has aggravating circumstances in committing the crime two or more times, but also has some mitigating circumstances such as honest confession, remorse, and partial compensation for damages…
Therefore, the court sentenced Nguyen Thi Van Anh to 17 years in prison for "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and 3 years in prison for "Using forged documents and seals of agencies and organizations"; the total combined sentence is 20 years in prison.
