Nghe An Court tried 2 "gamers" in the South for defrauding telecommunications fees

On March 13, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a first-instance criminal trial of Du Duc Minh (born 1988), residing in District 12, Ho Chi Minh City, and Thai Lap Trung (born 1986), residing in Rach Gia City, Kien Giang Province, for the crimes of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and "Illegal possession of narcotics".

Du Duc Minh and Thai Lap Trung at the trial. Photo: Nhu Binh

According to the indictment, on January 10, 2018, due to a pre-planned fraud, Minh contacted Mr. Nguyen Dinh Son via Zalo - a collaborator of the Sales Department of Region 2 of Nghe An Telecommunications Center to discuss the issue of activating 4 postpaid SIM cards (fee of 1 million VND) for employees to use for delivery.

Minh used a photo of Mr. NKD's ID card (floating on the internet), residing in Hoang Mai town, Nghe An, and sent it via Zalo to Mr. Son to complete the procedure to activate the phone SIM card.

With the same trick, Minh showed Trung how to contact Mr. Son, use the ID card and business registration of another company to activate 30 postpaid phone SIM cards, with a fee of 4 million VND.

When the network operator asked them to transfer money to activate the phone SIM card, Minh and Trung used the available money transfer receipt, cut and pasted it, or asked someone to write a fake receipt, took a photo and sent it to Mr. Son via Zalo.

Trusting that the customer had paid the connection fee, Mr. Son and his colleagues activated postpaid network for 34 phone SIM cards as requested by Du Duc Minh and Thai Lap Trung.

Once they had postpaid SIM cards, Trung and Minh installed them in their phones, logged into various electronic games to top up their electronic accounts with phone SIM card fees.

After discovering signs of fraud from 2 customers, on January 12, 2018, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Son only had time to lock 2 unused SIM cards and report to the police.

On May 24, 2018, the Investigation Police Agency of Nghe An Province Police searched Thai Lap Trung's residence and seized many related documents, 12 bags of crystal meth, and 6 synthetic drug pills.

The investigation agency determined that Du Duc Minh appropriated 163.2 million VND, Thai Lap Trung appropriated 138 million VND in fees from VNPT Nghe An business center; and appropriated nearly 1.3 million VND in connection fees from Mr. Son.

The People's Court sentenced Du Duc Minh to 3 years in prison for "Fraudulent appropriation of property"; Thai Lap Trung to 2 years in prison for "Fraudulent appropriation of property" and 2 years in prison for "Illegal possession of narcotics", with a total sentence of 4 years in prison for Trung.