Rented 5 cars, forged documents to embezzle 3.5 billion VND

On April 6, the Provincial People's Court brought the case of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" against Tran Anh Tuan (born in 1995, residing in Nghi Kim commune, Vinh city) to public trial.

Tran Anh Tuan in court. Photo: Nhu Binh

According to the investigation results, from November 15, 2016 to February 11, 2017, Tuan successfully carried out 5 scams in Vinh City and Dien Chau District. Tuan's method was to go to car rental shops to rent expensive cars for 800,000 - 1 million VND/day for 1-3 months. To make the car rental shop owners believe him, Tuan deposited 15-20 million VND.

After renting the car, Tuan hired someone to forge the car papers under the names of the above car owners for 10 million VND/set. Tuan brought the car and the fake papers to the pawn shop of Mr. Bui Dang Thang, residing in Dien Chau district, to pawn 3 cars for 850 million VND, the pawn shop of Nguyen Van Diep (born in 1986, residing in Dien Ngoc commune, Dien Chau) and the shop of Mrs. Tran Thi Chau, each shop had 1 car, and took 450 million VND.

The total amount of money from the three mortgaged cars was more than 1.7 billion VND, which Tuan used to pay off debts and personal expenses. When the deadline for returning the cars was overdue but Tuan did not bring them, the pawnshop owners reported it to the police. On May 11, 2017, Tran Anh Tuan was arrested.

The investigation agency determined the value of the 5 cars that Tuan rented from the owners of self-drive car rental shops to be 3.5 billion VND.

After arresting Tuan, the investigation agency proceeded to recover the aforementioned cars. However, Nguyen Van Diep did not hand over the car as evidence of the case but instead removed the GPS device, took the car to an acquaintance's house in Thanh Chuong district and hid it.

Using professional measures, the investigation agency tracked down, discovered and recovered this car. Nguyen Van Diep was prosecuted before the law for the crime of "Concealing property obtained by another person through criminal acts".

Currently, all 5 cars mentioned above have been recovered and returned to the car rental shop owners. These shop owners asked Tuan to compensate for the damage caused by not having a car for business during the time Tuan took possession of them. Mr. Bui Dang Thang asked Tuan to return 850 million VND, Ms. Tran Thi Chau and Nguyen Van Diep asked Tuan to return 450 million VND to each of them.

At the trial, Tran Anh Tuan admitted his crime and expressed remorse, hoping to receive leniency from the law. Tuan said that because he was unemployed and had a lot of debt, he came up with the idea of ​​appropriating property to both pay off his debt and have money for personal expenses.

The panel sentenced Tran Anh Tuan to 13 years in prison for “fraudulent appropriation of property”, forcing the defendant to compensate the entire amount of money he had appropriated from the victims. For the crime of “harboring property obtained through criminal acts”, Nguyen Van Diep was sentenced to 36 months in prison but given a suspended sentence.