The scam of the gambling-addicted 'hot girl'
Despite having a stable job with a good income, Le Thi Hien has a gambling habit. To have money to gamble online, Hien used many tricks to defraud and appropriate more than 14.5 billion VND from many people. The victims, believing in the promise of good profits from pooling capital to provide financial proof services, deposit to open a study abroad company, send people to work abroad, etc., fell into the trap of this "hot girl".
From Chief Representative to Fraudster
Le Thi Hien (33 years old), was born in Anh Son district (Nghe An). After graduating from high school, Hien continued her studies and chose Vinh city as her place to start a career. Accordingly, Hien used to be the Head of the representative office of a company operating in the field of organizing study abroad with a branch in Nghe An. Although she had a stable job and a good income, this girl had a gambling habit. To have money to gamble, Hien came up with the idea of defrauding many people.
Between December 2022 and June 2023, Hien provided false information such as contributing money to provide financial proof services, depositing to open a study abroad company, receiving money to send people to work abroad, travel... but did not do so in order to appropriate money. Hien's trick was to create a fake Zalo account of the manager of a company specializing in labor export and study abroad in Hanoi, send messages to her other Zalo, showing that Hien was cooperating with this company to build people's trust. Then, Hien took a screenshot of this conversation and sent it to the person she wanted to target to defraud. The person who Hien appropriated the most money from through this method was Mr. Vo MT and his wife (residing in Vinh City).
Le Thi Hien met Mr. T. through a business relationship. In December 2022, Hien met and discussed with Mr. T. about contributing capital together to provide a "financial proof" service for customers who want to study abroad, travel, or export labor. Hien promised to pay a very high daily profit, as well as flexibly return the principal when Mr. T. needed it.
Faced with the attractive invitation and text messages showing that Hien was cooperating with a large company in Hanoi (in fact, Hien composed the text messages herself and took screenshots to send to Mr. T.), this man trusted her. Within more than 5 months (from January to June 2023), Mr. T. and his wife transferred a total of more than 31 billion VND to Le Thi Hien. After that, Mr. T. and his wife withdrew more than 19 billion VND and were paid more than 2.6 billion VND in profits by Hien.
After receiving money from Mr. T. and his wife, Hien did not do as promised but took the money to spend and transferred money to a man named Hoang (unknown background) to participate in gambling on the website:http://sodo368.com. This man only found out he was scammed after a period of time contributing money to do business and Hien delayed paying. Through verification and investigation, Mr. T. realized he had been scammed so he filed a complaint against Hien with the police.
Cheated billions from classmates
Not only did Le Thi Hien deceive strangers, she also deceived her classmates. Accordingly, when she learned that Nguyen Duc Tan (the victim's name has been changed, from Binh Son commune, Anh Son district - a high school classmate), was working in Korea and intended to return to Vietnam, Hien discussed and invited her friend to contribute capital to open a study abroad consulting company with the purpose of sending people to work abroad.
During the discussion about establishing a company with his friend, Hien informed him that in order to be licensed to operate as a study abroad consultant, he was required to pay a deposit and prove his financial capacity of at least 1.5 billion VND, and was currently short of 500 million VND. Hien said that if Mr. Tan paid the above amount, he would receive a profit of 10 million VND per month. Trusting his friend, Mr. Tan transferred 500 million VND to Hien.
After receiving the money, Hien gambled. But to avoid suspicion and gain trust, within 6 months, Hien paid the profits to Mr. Tan. After that, Hien continued to ask him to contribute money to provide the service of "financial proof". Because he trusted and saw that Hien paid the profits for the full cooperation method, he transferred nearly 3.3 billion VND to Hien. After that, Mr. Tan withdrew some money and was paid the profits by Hien. Therefore, the investigation agency determined that the amount of money that Le Thi Hien defrauded her high school classmate was more than 2.8 billion VND.
In addition to the above tricks, because he used to work as the Chief Representative of a company operating in the field of sending people to work abroad, Hien tricked people into going abroad. Accordingly, Hien promised to be able to do the procedures for those who intended to go to work abroad or travel to Korea. When the victims trusted him, Hien would first ask for a deposit. Then, Hien asked for the remaining amount to be transferred. When receiving the money, Hien wrote a receipt, made a record of commitment that after 10 to 15 days, he would have a visa to go to Korea. However, Hien used all the money he took from the victims to gamble online without doing any procedures as agreed.
After realizing they had been scammed, the victims filed a complaint against Le Thi Hien with the police. On November 7, 2023, Hien was temporarily detained by the Investigation Police Department of Nghe An Province. The investigation agency determined that the total amount of money that Hien defrauded from the victims was more than 14.5 billion VND.
Payment date
With the above behavior, Le Thi Hien was prosecuted and brought to trial for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property". At the new trial held at the People's Court of Nghe An province, the defendant admitted to the crime.
The defendant stated that he used to work in the field of sending people abroad, so he approached many victims to commit fraud. Initially, to gain the victims' trust, the defendant paid high and full profits. As the debt grew larger, the defendant approached more victims to defraud and appropriate money.
The defendant said he spent the billions of dong from the scam and transferred it to a man named Hoang to gamble on social networks. However, Hien did not know the specific address of this person. According to the investigation agency, the website where Hien transferred the money for gambling was hosted overseas. Therefore, the investigation and verification encountered many difficulties.
At the trial, the defendant stated that he had committed the fraud on the victims alone, without any help from anyone. The defendant stated that he was currently unable to pay his debts and apologized to the victims.
The victims who came to court all demanded that the defendant return their money. They stated that because they believed the defendant, they lost a large amount of money, their lives were affected, and many families were even in disarray...
The panel of judges determined that the defendant's actions were dangerous to society, defrauding many people and causing public panic. The defendant's crime had aggravating circumstances, including committing the crime twice or more and defrauding a large amount of money. Considering the entire case, the court sentenced Le Thi Hien to life in prison for "fraudulent appropriation of property".
This is a suitable sentence for the defendant, and is also a general warning lesson for many people, because with high-return investment forms, there are often many risks that people need to be alert to avoid falling into the trap of scammers.