Woman uses fake gold as collateral to borrow more than 2 billion VND

On May 20, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened the first instance trial of defendant Le Thi Nu (born 1976, from Ha Tinh), residing in Viet Yen town, Bac Giang province, for the crime ofFraudulent appropriation of property.

According to the case file, in August 2019, Le Thi Nu went to the house of Ms. Ho Thi C. (born in 1953, residing in Hung Binh ward, Vinh city) to rent a room to stay. During the rental period, Nu often visited and cared for Ms. C.

On August 19, 2020, Nu told Ms. C. "Let me deposit some gold because there is no place to store it in the rented room, I'm afraid of losing it." Ms. C. refused, saying: "You sent fake gold and said it was real gold."

Two days later, when Mrs. C. went to the market, only her hard-of-hearing husband was at home, so Nu took the gold wrapped in paper and asked him to keep it for her.

When his wife returned from the market, her husband reported the incident, and Mrs. C. continued to question the fake gold. At that time, Nu told Mrs. C. and her husband: "Fake gold, fake gold." After that, the couple and C. said nothing and kept the gold for Nu.

About a month later, Le Thi Nu asked Mrs. C. and her husband to borrow 300 million VND to trade in land. Nu promised to pay 13% interest per month and use the gold she had previously deposited as collateral. Trusting her, Mrs. C. went to the bank to withdraw 300 million VND for Nu to borrow.

After that, Nu continued to borrow money from Mrs. C. and her husband many times. Each time she borrowed, Nu went to the market to buy fake gold, packaged it, sealed it, and then mortgaged it. Sometimes, to avoid suspicion, Nu lied to Mrs. C. that the gold belonged to someone else and asked her to mortgage it for a loan.

After lending Nu money 19 times but not seeing her pay, Mrs. C. and her husband asked her to bring the mortgaged gold to a gold shop to determine whether the gold was real or fake. At this time, Nu admitted that the gold was fake, bought at Vinh market and Ga market.

The investigation agency determined that, with the above tricks, from October 7, 2020 to March 19, 2023, Le Thi Nu appropriated nearly 2.1 billion VND from her husband and C.

At the trial, the defendant admitted to the fraud as charged in the indictment. The defendant stated that he had purchased fake gold to mortgage and borrow money from the victim and his wife.

The defendant did not use the above money to trade land but spent it all on gambling. Currently, the defendant is unable to repay the debt to the victim.

Considering the defendant’s actions as violating the law and dangerous to society, the panel sentenced Le Thi Nu to 16 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property. Regarding the civil aspect, the court ordered the defendant to compensate the victim in full.