While serving a life sentence, Nguyen Thi Hai Ly in Cam Giang received an additional sentence.

Forging documents to borrow money

Taking advantage of his friendship with Mr. V.D.T. (born in 1974, in Tan Truong commune, Cam Giang), in October 2019, Ly asked Mr. T. to lend him the land use rights certificate to borrow capital for business. If the loan was successful, Ly would send money to thank Mr. T.

Ly committed to take responsibility for completing the loan application and paying all the loans and interest at the bank. After the agreement, Mr. T. agreed but asked Ly to return the land use right certificate soon.

Ly asked another person, a bank employee at the Hai Duong branch, to guide Mr. T. through the loan application process at the bank. During the loan application process, Mr. T.'s marriage status certificate was required.

Knowing that Mr. T. did not want his wife to know, Ly provided Mr. T.'s information to someone on social media, ordered a fake marriage certificate and a land use right certificate for Mr. T. for 5 million VND. This certificate confirmed that Mr. T. was single.

After having the fake marriage certificate, Ly told Mr. T. to sign a loan contract at the bank.

Mr. T. signed without knowing the documents were fake.

During the contract signing process, because Mr. T. did not have a bank account to receive the loan, he transferred it to someone else's account, then transferred it to Ly. After receiving 500 million VND, Ly gave Mr. T. 25 million VND as a thank you.

On November 10, 2019, Ly returned Mr. T. a fake land use right certificate so that Mr. T. would not demand early return and so that his wife would not find out. Ly paid interest on the loan account for 4 consecutive months, then Ly asked her family to pay off the loan.

In February 2020, Mr. T. could not contact Ly, so he suspected that the land use right certificate was fake. Mr. T. took it to the Land Use Right Registration Office, Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Cam Giang for inspection and was informed that it was suspected to be fake.

Then, the Land Use Registration Office transferred the criminal information to the Investigation Police Agency (Cam Giang District Police).

Case upon case

On December 16, the People's Court of Hai Duong province opened a first-instance trial of Nguyen Thi Hai Ly for using fake documents of agencies and organizations.

In court, Ly confessed to all her actions. The court sentenced Nguyen Thi Hai Ly to 27 months in prison for using fake documents of agencies and organizations under point b, clause 2, article 341 of the Penal Code. The total sentence Ly is serving is life imprisonment.

Regarding the person who forged the marriage status certificate and land use right certificate for Ly, the investigation process could not identify them and therefore could not be processed. Regarding the forgery of documents to borrow money from the bank, Ly was the one who paid the monthly interest and then asked his family to pay off the debt and return the real land use right certificate to Mr. T. Therefore, there is no basis to determine that Ly committed fraud to appropriate the bank's assets and appropriate Mr. T's land use right certificate.

When appearing in court in the above case, Ly was serving a life sentence under judgment No. 314/2024/HS-PT dated April 16, 2024 of the High People's Court in Hanoi for fraud and embezzlement.

According to this verdict, on December 18, 2022, the Investigation Police Agency (Bac Giang Provincial Police) received a complaint from Mr. Phung Van Thai, General Director of Tien Bo Group Joint Stock Company. Mr. Thai reported that from May to November 2021, Ly, an employee of the company, took advantage of his position as the person assigned to collect money from customers at the Commercial Apartment Complex Project in Bac Giang City to embezzle 17.5 billion VND.

During the investigation, the authorities determined that Ly had committed the crime of embezzlement. In addition, Ly also created "fake" apartment purchase contracts, receipts, and deposit contracts to appropriate the assets of 6 people to sell to 2 other people for more than 3.4 billion VND, committing the crime of fraud and appropriation of assets.