Woman cheated to sell land to play virtual money
(Baonghean.vn) - Thao provided false information in land transactions such as accepting to do transfer procedures, taking people to see land of unknown ownership... to scam many people, appropriating 1.5 billion VND. Thao used the scammed money to play virtual currency online.
On June 23, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a trial for defendant Nguyen Thi Thao (born 1991), residing in Khanh Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district, for the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property.
According to the case file, due to losing money and being in debt while playing virtual currency online, Nguyen Thi Thao had the idea of appropriating other people's money.
Thao's trick was to use her Facebook account to find accounts posting land plots for sale in Yen Thanh district (Nghe An province), save images of the land maps to her phone, and then find people who wanted to buy the land to introduce.
During the process of contacting the victims, Thao showed them a picture of the land map over the phone and took them to see a plot of land (whose ownership was unknown). When the buyer asked to meet the owner to sign a contract to deposit money to buy the land, Thao asked a relative to meet the buyer and told them to lie about the information Thao had instructed them in advance.
For the land plots that the seller knows well and have a large area, Thao promised to find a co-buyer, undertake the procedures to transfer ownership and choose a good land location.
With the above tricks, from May 27, 2021 to January 24, 2022, Thao has 8 times appropriated the land purchase deposits of 4 victims with a total amount of 1.5 billion VND.
On January 29, 2021, seeing that the amount of money he had appropriated from the victims was too large and he could no longer pay, Thao fled and cut off contact with the victims. After that, the victims filed a complaint against Thao for fraud with the police.
At the trial, the defendant admitted to his crime. He said he used the money he had swindled to play virtual currency online, pay off debts, and spend it all on personal expenses. He apologized to the victims and promised to earn money to pay them back after his release from prison.
After considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the panel sentenced Nguyen Thi Thao to 15 years in prison for fraud and property appropriation and forced the defendant to return the money to the victims.
