The maid stole 30 taels of gold from the homeowner to go shopping for expensive items.
While cleaning, the maid discovered that the owner had left gold-plated items on the top of the cupboard. She got greedy and stole them, then sold them to get money to spend.
Can Tho City People's Court held a first-instance trial and sentenced Le Hong Thao (39 years old, residing in Ninh Kieu district, Can Tho city) to 9 years in prison for the crime of "Theft of property".
According to the indictment, since 2014, Mr. NHD (living in Can Tho City) hired Thao to help with housework every day. Thao is also the niece of Mr. D and his wife. On February 6, Thao was cleaning the top of the wine cabinet behind the kitchen when she found a bag containing 3 gold chains and 2 SJC gold bars. Thao took the 2 gold bars to the gold shop and sold them for 73 million VND to spend during Tet.
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| Defendant Le Hong Thao. |
On February 25, Thao continued to pretend to clean the top of the cupboard again to get the gold bag, and when she got home, she counted 28 SJC gold bars. Thao continued to sell all the gold for more than 1 billion VND, then used it to pay off debts to relatives, buy jewelry, lend it out, do charity work, buy construction numbers, and give the money to her husband to buy a motorbike and a phone.
On March 10, Mr. D. discovered that the gold bag was missing and reported to the police that 100 SJC gold bars (1 bar equals 1 tael of gold) had been stolen. However, during the investigation, Thao confessed that he had only taken 30 SJC gold bars, and Mr. Dung and his wife could not provide any receipts for the gold purchase, so there was no basis for investigation.
According to the valuation conclusion, the lowest purchase price of SJC gold bars at that time was 36,510,000 VND/tael. Thus, the converted value of the 30 gold bars that Thao had appropriated was more than 1 billion VND.
Through searching Le Hong Thao's house, the investigation agency seized nearly 439 million VND and returned it to the victim.
