Authorities uncover large-scale labor export scam.

(Baonghean) - Using extremely sophisticated tactics, painting a picture of a better life through labor export to countries like South Korea and Canada, Ngo Thu Ly (1983) and Giap Van Trung (1978), both residing in Viet Lap commune, Tan Yen district, Bac Giang province, colluded with Chu Ngoc Lam (1982), residing in Tien Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district (Nghe An province), to defraud naive and gullible people in many districts of Nghe An province, appropriating over 7 billion VND. The suspects have just been temporarily detained by the Yen Thanh District Police for investigation and clarification...

Impersonating high-ranking officials to commit fraud.

The initial investigation by the Criminal Investigation Department of Yen Thanh District Police determined that, from June 2013, Ngo Thu Ly falsely claimed to be working at the Government Inspectorate, while Giap Van Trung claimed to be an official working at a high-ranking agency in Hanoi. Both of them went to Nghe An to connect with Chu Ngoc Lam in Tien Thanh, Yen Thanh District, to establish a network for sending people abroad for labor export.

As a local resident, Chu Ngoc Lam was tasked with finding and recruiting people interested in overseas employment. To deceive the people, they forged numerous documents, files, and seals from Vietnam, South Korea, Canada, etc., all bearing signatures and seals. They guided people through the application process, such as photocopying identity cards, obtaining criminal records, passports, and submitting 100 portrait photos. They required those seeking overseas employment to deposit an initial amount of 7,000 USD with Phuong Dong Trading Joint Stock Company, headquartered in Hanoi. They also borrowed the meeting hall of Tien Thanh Commune People's Committee to introduce Ngo Thu Ly as a "Government Inspector," Hoang Tien Minh as an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Hoang Thanh Tung as an employee of Samsung Electronics, South Korea. They collected money from the workers, providing receipts with the promise that they would "fly" within 3 months; if the workers did not go, the company would refund the costs. In addition, they also "taunted" that each worker had to pay an extra $3,000 as "absconding fees".

Ngo Thu Ly and Giap Van Trung are being held in custody at the Yen Thanh Police Station.

However, despite repeated attempts, the workers were still not allowed to leave the country, causing many households to become frustrated and demand that Ngo Thu Ly, Giap Van Trung, and Chu Ngoc Lam provide an explanation. To appease the public, the perpetrators explained, "The reason for the delay is that Le Thanh Cong from Duc Thanh commune (Yen Thanh district) reported to the Ministry of Public Security that the workers on this flight to South Korea would abscond, so the flight had to be stopped." Furthermore, they cunningly used the disappearance and terrorist attack of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 as reasons for the continued delays of subsequent flights. Faced with the strong protests from the workers, the perpetrators made a final promise that all workers would be able to "fly" on March 6, 2014, but this was just an empty promise. In total, this scheme defrauded 37 people of over 7 billion VND.

On March 7, 2014, the Yen Thanh District Police received a complaint from Mr. Dang Dinh Tam, residing in Nghia Phuc, Tan Ky, regarding a labor export fraud ring. Lieutenant Colonel Pham Xuan Khanh, Deputy Head of the Yen Thanh District Police, stated: Identifying this as a large-scale labor export fraud ring, the Yen Thanh Police quickly launched an investigation, establishing Special Case No. 314 LD. On March 12, the task force went directly to Hanoi to verify the ringleaders of the overseas labor export scheme, Ngo Thu Ly and Giap Van Trung. The police clearly identified the identities and backgrounds of the suspects. Ngo Thu Ly was registered as a temporary resident in Hamlet 3, Me Tri, Tu Liem (Hanoi), and Giap Van Trung was temporarily residing at Alley 381/60, Nguyen Khang Street, Yen Hoa Ward, Cau Giay District, Hanoi. Both suspects were unemployed. The police in Yen Thanh district arrived at the temporary residence registration location, but none of the individuals in question were present.

Through investigative measures, on March 27th, the Yen Thanh District Police arrested Ngo Thu Ly and Giap Van Trung while they were operating in Nghe An province. At the police station, Ngo Thu Ly was very defiant, claiming she was pregnant and threatening to sue the police for illegal arrest. Faced with Ly's tactics, the investigating agency took her for a medical examination, which confirmed she was not pregnant. However, Ly adamantly denied the charges, claiming she was wrongly accused, that she was only a middleman and not the mastermind, and that the money had been transferred to Ms. Huyen from Nghe An (married to a South Korean man) and Ms. Thuy, who worked at the South Korean Embassy in Vietnam. The investigating agency verified that Ms. Thuy did not work at the South Korean Embassy in Vietnam. Both Huyen and Ly confessed to having only met once for a drink at Nga Tu So intersection and did not know Huyen's specific address. To date, the Yen Thanh Police have recovered over 500 million VND to return to two victims of the labor export fraud ring. The Yen Thanh Police have decided to initiate criminal proceedings, indict the suspects, and temporarily detain Ngo Thu Ly (31 years old) and Giap Van Trung (36 years old, both residing in Tan Yen district, Bac Giang province) for the crime of fraud and appropriation of property, and are continuing to investigate and expand the case.

The whole village is burdened with debt.

Late in the afternoon, we arrived at Xuan Bac fishing village, Dien Van commune (Dien Chau district), and inquired about the families who had recently been scammed into going to South Korea and Canada for overseas employment. Everyone enthusiastically pointed the way: "We hope you will write articles and that the authorities will intervene to help these people get their money back from these unscrupulous individuals. They are all farmers, mostly borrowing money; they are in a terrible situation, and now they don't know how they will repay their debts." Following narrow dirt roads, we arrived at the home of Ms. Hoang Thi Hong and her husband, Pham Ngoc Tam, one of the nine families who were victims of the scam. Ms. Hong sadly recounted: “My family has three children. Pham Thi Xuan is my eldest daughter (born in 1995). Last year, she had just graduated from high school and was unemployed. Mr. Lam (the suspect Chu Ngoc Lam – PV) came to our house and said that there were a few opportunities for overseas employment in South Korea coming up, and if we agreed to let her go, we should quickly prepare the paperwork and pay the money. Because Lam had worked at the incense stick factory in the neighborhood for a long time and had always gotten along well with everyone, the family completely trusted him.”

In Xuan Bac hamlet, there are five other cases involving relatives of Hong and Tam's family who were brokered by Lam to go abroad for work. Believing Lam's words and hoping for a "life-changing" outcome after their children went to work in South Korea and Canada, each family borrowed 120 million VND to pay Lam. In early March 2014, upon hearing that Lam's labor recruitment ring had been busted by the police, nine families in Dien Van commune were utterly devastated. Each family was left with a huge debt. To pay Lam, they mortgaged their land titles to borrow from banks, and even borrowed at exorbitant interest rates from individuals. Hong's family, out of the 120 million VND, borrowed 70 million VND from banks and 50 million VND from people in the commune at high interest rates. Every month, Hong's family has to pay 2.5 million VND in high interest. She sighed, "Our family's livelihood depends on six acres of rice paddies, three children who are of school age, and my husband works odd jobs here and there. Where will we get the money to pay off this debt? Now, just thinking about that debt makes me unable to eat or sleep."

Perhaps the most unfortunate case is that of Ms. Pham Thi Phuc. Last year, Ms. Phuc's mother was diagnosed with cancer, and the family had to borrow money from everywhere to pay for her treatment. After her mother passed away, the family was left with a considerable debt. When they heard about Lam's brokering of overseas employment in South Korea, Ms. Phuc and her sisters borrowed money from everywhere to help their younger brother, Pham Van Tuong, go to work there, hoping to send money back to the family to pay off the debt. Unexpectedly, they fell into a scam, and Ms. Phuc's family ended up with an even larger debt.

Further investigation in Tien Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district revealed that Chu Ngoc Lam, born in 1982, comes from a family in Hamlet 8. After finishing high school, Lam did not have a stable job. After many years working as a freelancer in the South, Lam returned to his hometown and invested in an incense stick production factory in Xuan Bac hamlet, Dien Van commune (Dien Chau). Having befriended Giap Van Trung and Ngo Thu Ly, from August 2012, Chu Ngoc Lam recruited people for overseas employment in South Korea and Canada. The targets Lam aimed for were children from families he knew. The family of Mr. Nguyen Hai Bich (71 years old) in Hamlet 6A, Tien Thanh commune, whose wife, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Xoan (61 years old), had previously taught Lam, and Lam's mother was a colleague of Mrs. Xoan.

In June 2013, seeing that Mrs. Xoan's son, Nguyen Hai Hau (born in 1991), was unemployed, Lam approached her family and tried to entice them. He claimed to know several people working at the Government Inspectorate and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who were currently recruiting for overseas employment in South Korea. He said, "There shouldn't be any spots left, but one person who applied had to cancel because they passed the university entrance exam. The family can 'fill in' this spot. Normally, the family would have to pay a fee of 15,000 USD, but Samsung Electronics – South Korea will lend 7,000 USD, which they can repay gradually after working in South Korea." Believing Lam's story and trusting him as a relative from the same village, Mrs. Xoan's family quickly borrowed 2,000 USD to pay the deposit. After completing the paperwork, Mrs. Xoan's family borrowed another 5,000 USD to pay Lam. Mrs. Xoan wiped away her tears, her voice choked with emotion: "We're old, our children are struggling, and now we're burdened with a debt of nearly 150 million dong. I don't know when we'll ever be able to repay it."

Not only local residents, but even commune officials such as Mr. Dang Xuan Ty - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Tien Thanh commune, and Mr. Tran Dinh Cam, Deputy Police Chief of Tien Thanh commune, were deceived by these individuals into sending their children to work abroad in South Korea. Both Mr. Ty's and Mr. Cam's families each paid Giap Van Trung 10,000 USD and 3 million Vietnamese dong.

Driven by a desire for work and a chance to "change their lives," and lacking any caution, these hardworking farmers became victims of scams, accumulating massive debts.

A cautionary tale.

This is not the first labor export scam in Yen Thanh district. Seven years ago (in 2006), 25 poor farmers in Yen Thanh district were scammed by Cuu Long Investment and Trade Joint Stock Company into working in Malaysia for 500 million VND. However, the local authorities were not vigilant against these strangers secretly entering the area to recruit people for labor export using sophisticated scams that exploited people's psychology. Mr. Pham Xuan Tuyet, Head of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said: "The labor export scam to South Korea and Canada in Tien Thanh commune, which the Yen Thanh District Police recently discovered and arrested, was completely unknown to the district because these individuals operated secretly in the area without any intervention from the local authorities." This incident shows that if the officials of Tien Thanh commune had been more cautious with these individuals, promptly reporting them to the district government and relevant authorities to identify the individuals and organizations recruiting people for overseas labor export, and then educating the public, the fraudulent activities could have been prevented. This is a lesson that localities need to learn from.

Currently, many young people are unemployed, and the dream of working abroad to "change their lives" is something everyone desires. Because of this, many individuals exploit the gullibility and limited knowledge of the people, defrauding them of money through illegal labor export schemes, with the people bearing the consequences. According to specialized agencies, to curb this fraud, local authorities from the commune to the district level, along with relevant agencies such as the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and the district-level Departments of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, need to strengthen public awareness campaigns about labor export. In addition, a comprehensive approach is needed, including: conducting regular inspections of labor export activities at licensed enterprises; and conducting unscheduled inspections of labor export enterprises upon receiving information from organizations, individuals, the media, or through complaints and denunciations from citizens. Through this process, individuals and organizations violating the law will be strictly identified and dealt with; administrative penalties will be imposed on labor export companies, or cases will be transferred to the police for criminal prosecution of those suspected of committing crimes under the Penal Code. On the part of labor export companies: Information regarding conditions, procedures, selection criteria, salaries, and especially the costs of sending workers to each market must be publicly and transparently disclosed; and branches and centers must be strictly managed to operate in accordance with the law.

From the workers' perspective: They need to be vigilant and obtain accurate information. When there is a need to work abroad, they should contact the Department of Overseas Labor Management – ​​Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and the local Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs directly, through the local Labor Export Steering Committee and companies authorized to export labor, and avoid going through intermediaries or brokers.

Van Truong - Xuan Hoang