The long slide of the "general director" of a ghost company

From early morning on January 24, 2019, many people from Hoang Mai and Quynh Luu towns took the early bus to attend the first instance trial of Tran Van Hoa (born in 1960; residing in Quynh Loc commune, Hoang Mai town). They were not only simple victims, relatives, but also neighbors and long-time friends of the defendant.

Defendant Tran Van Hoa at trial. Photo: Quynh An.

Around 2008, Hoa established Hong Thien Loc Company (Hamlet 6, Quynh Loc Commune, Hoang Mai Town) to do business and get rich. But business losses and tax debts led to bankruptcy.

To have money to pay off his debt, Hoa continued to establish a "ghost" company called Hong Thien Loc Nghe An, and at the same time called himself the General Director. With the title of "General Director" and his eloquence, Hoa drew many "profits" before the eyes of the people.

Tran Van Hoa used his speaking skills, claiming to know many provincial leaders, boasting that his father was a sworn brother in the war zone with the father of the provincial leader. So he was able to get a job, send people to work abroad through tourism and run procedures to borrow State capital to build large-capacity fishing boats, serving the sea...

Due to lack of knowledge and too much trust in Hoa’s appearance, many people borrowed money from banks and sold their fields to Hoa to get jobs. According to Hoa’s request, these households had to pay a “deposit” to the defendant, in which the least was about 5 million VND, the most was nearly 300 million VND…

However, after giving money to Hoa and waiting but the work was not done, the households went to Hoa's company to collect the debt, only to be shocked to find out that it was just a "ghost company" and the General Director had also disappeared.

From the end of 2015 to July 2017, Tran Van Hoa successfully carried out many different business transactions, defrauding 13 people. Appropriating up to 819 million VND. Hoa used that money to pay off his own debts as well as family expenses.

One of Hoa's first victims was Ms. Vu Thi H. (born in 1991) residing in Quynh Xuan Ward, Hoang Mai Town. After graduating from the Academy of Finance but still unemployed, Ms. H. asked many acquaintances for help finding a job. Around mid-July 2014, when Ms. H. was at an acquaintance's house, she accidentally met Tran Van Hoa. During the conversation, knowing that Ms. H. was looking for a job, Hoa informed her that he was able to find a job for Ms. H. at the Finance - Planning Department of Hoang Mai Town People's Committee.

At the end of July 2014, Hoa proactively went to Mr. Vu Van B.'s house (Ms. H.'s biological father) to discuss finding a job for Ms. H. During the discussion, Hoa asked Ms. H.'s father to pay 40 million VND in advance to cover expenses. To create trust, a few days later, Hoa drove Mr. B. and his son to Vinh City under the pretext of going to meet provincial officials to ask for a job.

Believing this “general director”, at the end of 2014, Mr. B. continued to give Hoa 200,000,000 VND. But waiting for a long time without seeing his daughter get a job, Mr. B. became suspicious, called home but Hoa avoided him, asked for the money back but the defendant did not pay, so he filed a complaint with the authorities.

Defendant Tran Van Hoa, in his final statement, admitted his crime, apologized, and hoped to receive sympathy from the victim because he was homeless and had nothing. At the same time, he asked the court to consider his past contributions to reduce his sentence.

The panel of judges determined: The defendant's actions are dangerous to society and need to be severely punished to set an example. The court decided to sentence defendant Tran Van Hoa to 10 years in prison for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".