Shipper impersonating police officer defrauds billions

The Investigation Police Agency of Lao Cai Province has just issued a decision to prosecute the case, prosecute the accused and issue a detention order against Nguyen Van Cuong (born in 1996), with permanent residence in Tuy Lai commune, My Duc district, Hanoi city, for the act offraud and appropriation of property.

The investigation determined that in 2016, Nguyen Van Cuong performed his military service and was stationed in Quoc Oai district, Hanoi. In 2018, Cuong left the army and worked as a shipper. He then lied to his family and everyone that he had been transferred from the army to the police. At the same time, he ordered online a set of CAND uniforms with a lieutenant rank badge, a number, a belt, a number 8 buckle, and a set of uniforms of the mobile police force (CSCĐ).

Cuong introduced himself as working at the Mobile Police Command to improve his image and gain the trust of his girlfriend and family, and joined groups on social networks to learn about the activities of the Mobile Police force with the aim of showing that he was working in the police force. Even in 2020, through many tricks, Nguyen Van Cuong married his girlfriend and both families and friends still mistook Cuong for a police officer.

In 2022, due to the need to buy a car, Mr. Nguyen Duc Vinh (born in 1979), residing in Bat Xat district (Lao Cai) asked Cuong to help him find one. Because he needed money to pay off his debt, Cuong came up with the idea of ​​defrauding Mr. Vinh's money.

To commit the crime, Cuong sent a photo of the Mazda 6 to Vinh and said it was a vehicle that was being liquidated by the agency for 560 million VND. Because he was an "insider", Cuong was able to buy it at a discount and had to register it under his name.

Because he trusted Cuong as a police officer, Vinh transferred a total of 602 million VND to Cuong to buy a car. Upon receiving the money, Cuong used 200 million VND to buy a Mazda 6 with license plate 30H-617.17 on installments, and Cuong used the rest to pay off debt and personal expenses.

On February 3, due to needing money, Cuong continued to trick Vinh into giving him the car and then sold it to someone else for 280 million VND. He also repeatedly tricked the victim into transferring more money under the pretext of changing the name and withdrawing the documents.

Using similar tricks, Nguyen Van Cuong also defrauded two other people, appropriating about 1.4 billion VND in property.

On December 19, the Investigation Police Agency of Lao Cai Province decided to prosecute the case of fraud and appropriation of property, prosecute the accused and issue an order to detain Nguyen Van Cuong for the above-mentioned acts.

During the investigation, the provincial police investigation agency seized all evidence related to the case.

The case is still under investigation to be handled according to the provisions of law.