Borrowing money and lacking money for medical treatment because of believing a director who "bragged" about running a project

The trial of Tran Van Hoa (born 1960), residing in Quynh Loc commune, Hoang Mai town, prosecuted by the Provincial People's Procuracy for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" took place quite quickly.

Hoa stood in court, wearing a white collar and a gray sweater, still maintaining the demeanor of a director who, according to him, was implementing a $2.5 million poverty alleviation project in six districts in western Nghe An.

Defendant Tran Van Hoa. Photo: Nhu Binh

Although he has a super-huge project in hand, in reality, Hoa owes more than 800 million VND to the people. Today, this director has to appear in court because of this.

In fact, Hoa is also the director of a business, but: "Hoa's business is operating at a loss, is in debt to the bank, has not paid its workers for many months, and is currently being sued by the workers," the representative of the Provincial People's Procuracy who held the right to prosecute at the trial revealed.

With the title of a business director and a talent for "gossiping", Hoa created a cover for himself that made many fishermen from Hoa's hometown wide-eyed when they had the "honor" to meet him. According to Hoa's introduction, he was the sworn brother of a big leader in the province, had many extensive relationships, could "run" jobs, "run" procedures for preferential loans to build fishing boats for fishermen, and run labor export to Korea.

Tran Van Hoa's first "deal" was to "run" for Ms. Vu Thi H. to work at the Finance Department of Hoang Mai town when the town was newly established for 240 million VND, with a deposit of 40 million VND. Hoa assured that with his extensive connections, after only 10 days Ms. H. would have a decision to work, otherwise the entire amount would be postponed and returned.

However, after receiving the full 240 million VND to "bribe the job", Hoa used it to spend, continuing to polish himself as a successful director to easily act for the next deals.

Around May 2014, during a tea and wine session, Hoa "bragged" to Nguyen Huu Q. (born 1961), residing in Quynh Lap commune, Hoang Mai town, that he had many acquaintances in the province and could "run" for fishermen to borrow preferential capital to build boats according to Decree 67/CP.

Mr. Q. informed some fishermen in the area to come and “ask” Hoa. Hoa required each fisherman to pay 30 million VND as a “fee” for running the project. If the project was successful, Hoa would receive a 3% commission from the total project budget that the fishermen were given.

Some time later, under the pretext of difficulties in running the project, Hoa asked the fishermen to pay more fees. However, in reality, Hoa had no function or any action to fulfill his commitment to the people.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Q. (sitting in the middle) paid Hoa to run a shipbuilding project. The project failed, the money was lost, and Mr. Q. repeatedly begged Hoa to pay him for medical treatment, but he was unsuccessful. Photo: Nhu Binh

Waiting for a long time without seeing the project money, these fishermen repeatedly asked Hoa and requested to return the money but he kept delaying. Currently, Tran Van Hoa has returned 10 million VND to 2 fishermen each, appropriating 279 million VND from 4 fishermen.

On one occasion, Hoa met some young men at his friend’s house. After learning that these young men were unemployed, Hoa “bragged” that he could help them go to Korea to work as a tourist, which he introduced as “easier than going to Hanoi”.

Those who want to go will only have to pay a deposit of 20 million VND, Hoa will take care of the rest of the procedures. When he learned that these young fishermen were eager to go abroad to earn money instead of being precarious at sea, Hoa urged them to pay more money to "speed up the procedures".

However, in reality, all the money that Hoa took from the victims was used for personal expenses. When the deadline passed and Hoa still did not respond, and when they asked for their money back, they were not paid. Only then did these workers realize that they had been scammed and reported Tran Van Hoa's actions to the authorities.

The total amount of money that Hoa had appropriated from 13 victims in the form of job-seeking, project-seeking, and immigration-seeking fraud was more than 800 million VND. After the incident was exposed, Hoa returned a small amount to each person. In court, Hoa admitted all his crimes and pledged to return the money he had appropriated, but he “could not say when he would return it”.

The defendant Hoa's children also did not mention the issue of replacing their father to partially remedy the consequences for the victims, but only focused on asking the panel of judges to consider mitigating circumstances favorable to their father, despite the presiding judge reminding them that they had no right to propose issues other than the defendant's civil compensation liability.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Q. – the victim of Tran Van Hoa’s project scam always had a medical mask on his face. He just asked the hospital to let him out for a short time to attend the trial.

The fisherman who came to court to claim his hard-earned money said bitterly: “When Mr. Hoa said he could run the shipbuilding project according to Decree 67 of the Government, we gave him money to take care of it because we wanted to do it quickly and quickly. When we found out we were cheated and asked for our money back, Mr. Hoa only paid us 10 million VND, but we kept asking for the remaining 80 million VND but he refused to pay. I got sick and had to stay in the hospital for a long time, and I was short of money. I begged Hoa to pay me back for treatment but he still refused to pay…” Hearing the victim “accusation”, Hoa remained indifferent as if he was innocent.

10 years in prison is the sentence that the People’s Court sentenced Tran Van Hoa to for “Fraudulent appropriation of property”. 10 years in prison is not a short time and during that time, Hoa’s victims will hardly be able to reclaim the money they “donated” to this super swindler.