Defendant Do Thi Luan was charged with defrauding 27 people of more than 18 billion VND. However, in court, all 27 people considered to be victims denied being victims of the case.

On May 18, Ho Chi Minh City People's Court held a first-instance trial of the case of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" against defendant Do Thi Luan (born in 1957, from Nam Dinh).

Defendant Luan in court

According to the indictment, Do Thi Luan was in the real estate business. Due to business losses, she sought to defraud and appropriate other people's property to pay off debts.

In the first transaction, Luan bought a house from Mr. Duc and Ms. Thoa in Hiep Thanh ward, district 12 with a handwritten document. On May 11, 2011, the two parties went to the notary office to sign a contract to transfer the house and land to Mr. Tan for 2.615 billion VND.

Mr. Tan completed the tax payment procedure, then the District 12 People's Committee registered the transfer of ownership on June 21, 2011.

While Mr. Tan was doing the registration and name change procedures, Luan divided the land into many small lots and made a handwritten "Real Estate Purchase Contract" to sell to many other people. Luan promised to transfer the name to them, but Luan did not do so and appropriated a total of 2.6 billion VND from the 3 victims.

Using similar tricks, from April 2011 to October 2011, Luan defrauded and appropriated 18.7 billion VND from 25 victims.

The trial had nearly 200 people with related rights and obligations.

Today’s trial was attended by more than 200 people, including 27 victims and 10 defense attorneys. In addition, the court summoned more than 150 people with related rights and obligations. The trial is expected to last until May 20.

However, when questioned, those identified as victims in this case all confirmed that they bought many plots of land from Ms. Luan with handwritten documents and built houses. During the construction process, Mr. Tan came to see but did not prevent it, or reported to the local authorities to prevent it, proving that Mr. Tan is not the owner of the plots of land for which he is claiming rights.

To prove this, many households have audio recordings of their conversations with Mr. Tan about the relationship between Mr. Tan and defendant Luan being a mortgage loan relationship in the form of a sales contract, not just a sales relationship as Mr. Tan asserted.

During the interrogation this afternoon, all the victims admitted that they were not victims of this case.

The court will continue questioning Mr. Tan at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, May 19, to clarify.

According to dantri.com.vn