Defendant Ong Thi Bich Ngoc at the trial on April 25 – Photo: TIEN THUAN
After the first instance trial on the afternoon of April 25, the trial panel of the People’s Court of Bac Lieu province sentenced Ong Thi Bich Ngoc (36 years old, residing in Bec Hen Lon hamlet, Long Thanh commune, Vinh Loi district, Bac Lieu) to 19 years in prison. detained for fraudulent appropriation of property.
In this case, there were 144 victims, most of whom were women in rural areas, relatives, and acquaintances with Ngoc. These people trusted and participated in the gang that Ngoc owned and were defrauded by Ngoc, appropriating more than 15 billion VND.
According to the indictment, in 2010, Ong Thi Bich Ngoc began owning a clan and opened many profitable clans and called on many people in the communes of Long Thanh, Chau Thoi, Vinh Hung A, Chau Hung town of Vinh district. Profit; Minh Dieu commune (Hoa Binh district) and Bac Lieu city (Bac Lieu province) participate to enjoy commissions.
During the process of owning the guild, Ngoc used the guild members’ payment for personal expenses and filled the guild, leading to an imbalance, so he committed fraudulent acts of appropriating the guild members’ money.
Specifically, using fake names to participate in the game to take advantage of them by opening new clans, Ngoc takes the names of his relatives or takes the names of members of other clans to participate, writing fake names on the clan list. Then, when they need money, they will take these parts and appropriate the members’ money.
In addition, Ngoc also impersonated members of the hui by taking advantage of the fact that some members did not directly participate in opening the hui, did not know the participants playing in the same hui with her, so at each hui opening, Ngoc lied. There were other guild members who offered them a high price, but in reality, Ngoc took the guild’s share to appropriate the money.
Many victims were present during the trial of Ong Thi Ngoc Bich – Photo: TIEN THUAN
Ngoc even sold them short to the members. Knowing that some members wanted to buy their shares because of the high profit, Ngoc gathered the money from the members to buy them and spent it personally.
By June 2022, Ngoc announced his bankruptcy. At this time, there are still 76 unfinished hui strings including weekly hui, half-monthly, one-month, two-month and four-month hui, valued from 200,000 VND each to 5 million VND each. The total amount of money Ngoc appropriated from the investigators through the investigation amounted to over 15.3 billion VND.
In addition to the prison sentence, the jury also ordered defendant Ngoc to compensate the victims for all the money appropriated.
