Advertising cheap cars as bait, used car dealer becomes scammer with scenario of appropriating hundreds of millions of dong

Sophisticated scam scenario…

Nguyen Duy Phuc (28 years old), residing in Yen Thanh commune, Nghe An (Van Thanh commune, old Yen Thanh district) is the eldest child in a family of 2 children. Born into a middle-class family, Phuc was given the opportunity to study by his parents. When he reached adulthood, Phuc got married and made a living by selling used cars.

This man regularly traded cars with many people across the country. Phuc's business relationships grew from there. To expand his business, he also mobilized many people to contribute capital, promising to share profits. However, the business was not favorable, causing Phuc's used car business to get worse and worse. Instead of thinking of a way to recover, this man chose to commit fraud to save the situation.

Nguyen Duy Phuc's scam was to go to used car sales pages on social networks to get information and pictures of the car, then offer it to people in need. Phuc took advantage of customers' psychology of liking cheap prices to trick them into transferring money in advance.

On June 23, 2024, through a used car sales page online, Phuc saw a person wanting to sell a Hyundai Accent car (priced at 350 million VND), so he texted to buy it and deposited 5 million VND for this person to send information and pictures of the car. When he had information about the car, Phuc posted an article, pictures, and the car's registration certificate to sell the car.

At the same time, Phuc texted Nguyen HL (born in 1982, residing in Hung Yen province) to sell the car for 340 million VND. However, in the afternoon, when he heard that the car had been fined, Phuc did not buy it, but he did not inform L.

On the afternoon of June 26, 2024, because he needed more money to pay off his debt and saw that Mr. L. had agreed to transfer money to buy the car before, Phuc offered to sell another car for 295 million VND (while the owner of the car was selling it for nearly 350 million VND). Because he trusted him, Mr. L. agreed to buy two cars and transferred half of the deposit (395 million VND) in advance as Phuc requested. After receiving the above amount, Phuc used the entire amount to pay off debts to many people.

The next day, Mr. L. asked “when will I receive the car?” and the guy lied and said that he had sent the car from the South. At the same time, Phuc sent the pictures of the two cars he had taken before to the customer to make them trust him. To make the customer no longer worried, Phuc edited and cropped the money transfer pictures himself, showing that he had transferred 300 million VND to buy the car to Mr. L.

A few days later, still not seeing the car arrive, Mr. L. asked Phuc to send the phone number of the driver transporting the car so he could contact him himself. At this time, Phuc thought of a new trick: asking a friend who was also in the used car business to pretend to be the driver transporting the 2 cars to the customer. Before the perfect scenario, Mr. L. continued to trust and wait.

But after a period of contacting and waiting without any results, Mr. L. began to suspect, so he went to Di An City, Binh Duong Province (now Ho Chi Minh City) to meet Phuc. When they met, Phuc still lied to Mr. L. that the car was being transported to Hanoi by a transport company and that he himself could not contact the driver. Phuc promised Mr. L. "you will receive the car exactly 2 days later".

Faced with the broker’s roundabout manner, the customer became suspicious and asked for a refund, saying he would transfer the money when he delivered the car. However, Nguyen Duy Phuc gave many reasons for not returning the money.

After repeatedly demanding the money back but failing, the victim filed a complaint with the police in early July 2024. On September 20, 2024, Nghe An Provincial Police Department arrested Nguyen Duy Phuc on an emergency basis to investigate the act of fraud and property appropriation.

Parents in debt

At the first instance trial of Nguyen Duy Phuc for fraud and appropriation of property, the defendant admitted to the crime. Phuc stated that due to business losses and debt pressure, he committed fraud to appropriate money. The defendant stated that he had enough awareness to know that it was wrong and violated the law. However, the defendant gave many reasons to justify his actions.

After the incident, the defendant asked his family to help him fix all the consequences for the victim. When attending the trial of their son, the defendant's parents were both sad. They did not expect that their son, whom they always trusted, would commit fraud and appropriate a large amount of money. Although they were saddened by the consequences their son had caused to the victim, they borrowed money to fix it.

However, that is only a small part of the debt of nearly 4.4 billion VND that Phuc is currently carrying. According to the investigation agency, after the incident was exposed, many people filed complaints against Nguyen Duy Phuc for fraudulent appropriation of property by contributing capital to buy and sell used cars, but not following the agreement.

However, during the review of the file, the authorities determined that the two parties had agreed to pool their money to buy a used car to sell for profit and to pay for profit sharing. Since this was a civil relationship, the authorities did not handle it. However, at the trial, the defendant’s parents wrote a commitment to pay the debt to the “partners” on behalf of their son.

Sitting and hastily writing papers committing to remedy the consequences caused by his "noble son", the eyes of his parents showed clear signs of frustration and fatigue. But sitting not far away, Phuc seemed calm, turning his head away, then the defendant turned his head down. Only when the representative of the People's Procuracy of Nghe An province, exercising the right to prosecute at the trial, reminded Phuc that he bowed his head.

Phuc used to be the pride of his parents and relatives with a fairly favorable business. But his involvement in gambling and massive investment in business made his finances increasingly worse. After a period of choosing to borrow here and pay there, he fell into a situation of heavy debt, and when he realized, things had gone too far.

At the trial, the defendant apologized to the victim and his relatives. The defendant hoped to receive leniency from the law so that he could soon return to rebuild his life, repay his parents, and take care of his wife and children. After a comprehensive review of the case, the court applied many mitigating circumstances, and the panel sentenced Nguyen Duy Phuc to 3 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property.

After the verdict was announced, Nguyen Duy Phuc bowed his head and walked quickly out of the courtroom. Behind him, his parents stood silently watching, their eyes dull and helpless. No one said anything. The silence at that moment seemed to weigh heavily on the room. The child had fallen into the clutches of the law, the debt was still there, only making the hair grayer and the thin shoulders more bent.