Spectacular trick of a person pretending to know a provincial leader

Lost more than 6.7 billion VND from an acquaintance... online

Trinh Dac Nhan did not have a stable job, so he thought of a way to go online to find someone to scam him and take his money. In July 2022, Nhan saw Ms. NTN (born in 1996) go online to learn about the procedures for changing the purpose of using 2,000 m2 of her family's pond in Gia Loc district to residential land.

Nhan took the initiative to make Facebook friends with Ms. N. Through conversation, Nhan told Ms. N. that he knew officials from the Gia Loc District Land Registration Office and leaders of Hai Duong province who could change the purpose and issue a land use right certificate for Ms. N. at a cost of about 600 million VND.

Trusting Nhan, on July 7, 2022, Ms. N. transferred 150 million VND as a deposit to Nhan. After that, Ms. N. continued to transfer another 148 million VND for the two parties to sign a deposit contract with a total amount of 298 million VND; the agreement was that by September 25, 2022, the conversion of land use purpose would be completed and 2 land use right certificates would be issued.

In August 2022, Nhan informed Ms. N. that she needed to pay taxes and money to meet with leaders, so she asked Ms. N. to transfer nearly 1.9 billion VND. On September 25, 2022, Nhan said that Hai Duong province was being inspected for land, so he could not complete the procedures to change the land use purpose for Ms. N. After that, the two re-signed the deposit contract with Nhan receiving more than 2.1 billion VND and agreeing to complete the land conversion on November 4, 2022.

To gain Ms. N's trust, Nhan went online to buy 3 pre-stamped "receipts for receiving and returning registration results and issuing certificates" from the Gia Loc District Land Registration Office and bought 1 box of red ink and 2 boxes of rectangular stamps.

After having the 3 fake papers above, Nhan wrote information related to Ms. N. and stamped them, then sent 2 copies to Ms. N. by express mail. Nhan continued to buy 3 copies of the "decision to notify the handling of personal income tax by the Head of the Hai Duong City Tax Department" and sent 1 copy to Ms. N. by express mail.

From August 15, 2022 to May 8, 2023, when Ms. N. needed money to solve family matters, Nhan transferred more than 628 million VND to her. Nhan's purpose of transferring money back was to make Ms. N. trust him and continue to transfer money as requested.

As calculated, Ms. N. continued to transfer more than 4.5 billion VND to Nhan. The total amount of money that Ms. N. transferred to Nhan was more than 6.7 billion VND. Nhan used the money he had swindled from Ms. N. for personal expenses, gambling, and debt repayment.

On May 25, 2023, Ms. N. reported Nhan to the Investigation Police Agency (Hai Duong Provincial Police). On June 5, 2023, Nhan turned himself in to the police and confessed to all of his acts of property appropriation.

Bad past

On August 9, the People's Court of Hai Duong province opened a trial against Trinh Dac Nhan for fraud, appropriation of property and use of fake documents of agencies and organizations.

In court, Nhan showed remorse for his fraudulent behavior. He has a bad personal history, having been to prison three times for fraud and property appropriation in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang provinces. Up until this time, Nhan had not had his criminal record cleared.

The trial panel determined that the defendant Nhan's actions were dangerous to society, providing false and untrue information to appropriate a total of more than 6.7 billion VND from the victim, violating the victim's property rights. The defendant also used 6 fake documents from agencies and organizations to send to Ms. N. with the purpose of appropriating an additional, particularly large amount of money. This action of the defendant violated the administrative management order and normal operations of agencies and organizations in the field of State management of seals, documents and other papers. The defendant is a person with full criminal capacity, clearly knowing that the above actions were prohibited by law, but still intentionally committed them for personal gain.

The court sentenced defendant Trinh Dac Nhan to 16 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property, and 3 years in prison for using fake documents of agencies and organizations, for a total sentence of 19 years in prison. The prison term is calculated from the date of detention on June 6, 2023.

Authorities recommend that people be cautious and alert when carrying out procedures and transactions, especially transactions of great value, to avoid being deceived by fake documents. When detecting suspicious signs, it is necessary to immediately report to the authorities for timely prevention.