Prosecuted, temporarily detained 22 people in the case of "herding" customers to buy ghost projects in Dong Nai

On September 10, the Investigation Police Agency (IPA) of Dong Nai Province Police informed that it had decided to prosecute and temporarily detain 22 subjects who are key people of Loc Phuc Investment Construction and Business Joint Stock Company (abbreviated as Loc Phuc Company) to investigate and clarify the act of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

The decisions have been approved by the People's Procuracy at the same level.

According to the Investigation Police Agency, the identities of the 22 people prosecuted and temporarily detained for 4 months include: Nguyen Van An (27 years old, General Director), department heads, section heads, accountants, team leaders, and "actors" pretending to be real estate customers (also known as AC or wooden legs).

Regarding Huynh Huu Tuong (32 years old, residing in Ho Chi Minh City), the Investigation Police Agency of Dong Nai Province is still consolidating the case file to prosecute the defendant for the above mentioned behavior.

Dong Nai Police Department determined that Huynh Huu Tuong is the owner of Loc Phu Investment, Construction and Business Joint Stock Company, and is also the mastermind and leader of organizing a group of employees to bring customers from Ho Chi Minh City to Dong Nai to defraud customers in real estate transactions.

To avoid being detected by the authorities, Tuong made a detailed plan and hired Nguyen Van An (27 years old, from Tay Ninh) as the company's General Director, while Tuong ran the operations behind the scenes.

According to the investigation agency, there are currently about 60 victims who are customers of Loc Phu Company who have come to the police to report the fraudulent behavior of this enterprise. The total amount of virtual land transactions that have been embezzled is up to more than 70 billion VND.

Previously, on the morning of August 31, Dong Nai police discovered that employees of Loc Phuc Company were organizing an event to open a "trading floor" to commit fraud and property appropriation at a ghost project in An Vien commune (Trang Bom district, Dong Nai province).

Immediately afterwards, hundreds of officers and soldiers from the Criminal Police Department, Traffic Police Department, Mobile Police Department, Trang Bom District Police divided into many working groups, raided and arrested Nguyen Van An (born in 1996), General Director of the company, and 185 related subjects. Among them were 122 employees, 20 people hired to pretend to be customers, 43 customers were victims of Loc Phuc Company.

In addition, the Investigation Police Agency of Dong Nai Province also coordinated with Ho Chi Minh City Police to search the headquarters of Loc Phuc Company, sealed and seized 50 boxes of documents, many computers, electronic devices, more than 2.4 billion VND, 18,000 Japanese Yen; 3,500 USD; 24.3 taels of gold; 2 4-seat cars; 5 52-seat cars to serve the investigation and expand the project.

At the investigation agency, this group initially confessed that in June 2022, Loc Phuc Company began organizing fraudulent acts to appropriate assets of a number of projects in Dong Nai province.

Specifically, to lure victims into the trap, Loc Phuc Company recruited hundreds of part-time students and interns to work as subordinates, then instructed them to go to social networking sites to find beautiful houses in Ho Chi Minh City, take pictures, and post them on the Company's website and the Cho Tot website to introduce them for sale.

Here, many people who want to buy houses in Ho Chi Minh City have found and contacted the company. Then, the superior staff of these students will contact the customers using junk phone SIM cards issued by Loc Phuc Company. For each customer, they only use 1 SIM card to contact and then throw it away.

When customers asked to see a house in Ho Chi Minh City, the subjects made an appointment with them at a predetermined coffee shop, then took them into a 52-seat car, closed the curtains and organized a game with prizes to reassure the victims that they were being taken to see a house. In fact, the customers were "herded" by the subjects to see land at ghost projects.

On the car, the staff of Loc Phuc Company hired and arranged for unemployed, elderly people and people who specialized in playing extras in TV dramas, with good acting skills to lure customers.

At the same time, this group used money from Loc Phuc Company to give to a group of extras to approach customers on the bus. They pretended to be real estate buyers to create closeness and sympathy, then lured and enticed customers to participate in the transaction.

When it comes to projects that they create and draw themselves, the hired extras always stay close to accompany the customers.

At the same time, the company arranged dozens of employees to surround customers to introduce products with values ​​many times higher than the actual value of the land, continuously pressuring victims to deposit and psychologically impacting customers to make them confused and have no other choice.

Along with that, the group of extras plays the role of contributing money with customers to deposit plots of land to enjoy a “fake discount”. When customers agree to deposit (usually about 100 million VND), the group of extras will also deposit to stimulate and encourage customers to buy the land.

After making a deposit and writing a receipt, the customer is taken to a 7-seat car and accompanied by a group of extras, sales manager, and customer consultant back to the company to continue influencing the customer to make an additional deposit of 60% - 70% of the transaction value on that plot of land.

In case the customer discovers that the land lot is worth more than its actual value and requests a deposit refund, the staff will refuse. At that time, if the customer wants to receive the land use right certificate, they must pay the remaining amount before being able to make a notarized contract and transfer the land use right.

However, even if the customer receives the land use right certificate, it will not be at the location that Loc Phuc Company took them to see and deposit at first, but at another location, dozens of kilometers away, and the value is also much lower.

In case of customer complaints or denunciations, the staff directly dealing with that customer will cancel the junk SIM and block communication.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Vo Nhat Hong Phuc, Head of the Criminal Police Department of Dong Nai Province Police, initial investigation found that the above company earns less than 20 billion VND per month.

In addition to signs of fraud and property appropriation, this company also has signs of other crimes and will continue to be investigated by the investigation agency in the coming time.