Why are crimes in the financial and banking sectors becoming more and more complicated? - Part 2: Accidentally "falling into the trap" or because of greed?

(QBĐT) - While the situation of fraud and property appropriation (LĐCĐTS) crimes related to finance and banking (TC, NH) is becoming more and more complicated, the question is why many victims in these cases are so easily "trapped" by fraud? Is it just an accident or is it greed that leads the way?

Trust because of acquaintance

After more than 3 years of trial of the subject of LĐCĐTS Duong Minh Phu, Mr. LTP in Bo Trach district has not yet received compensation for his damages from the subject of fraud. According to the verdict of the High Court in Da Nang , Duong Minh Phu is forced to compensate Mr. P. with 290 million VND.

According to the records, around the beginning of February 2020, Mr. LTP went to the Bo Trach Transaction Office, Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development - Quang Binh Branch to meet Duong Minh Phu to complete the loan procedures for VND 700 million. Phu was the person who directly guided and helped Mr. P. complete the loan procedures. However, due to needing money to play the stock market, during the procedure, Phu inflated Mr. P.'s loan application by VND 800 million. Phu was also the person who directly went to the customer transaction department, asked the transaction officer to disburse and receive VND 1.5 billion on behalf of Mr. P.

After receiving the money, Phu gave Mr. P. 700 million VND, and Phu appropriated the remaining amount. Not stopping there, from May to June 2020, when Mr. P. asked Phu to pay off a loan of 350 million VND, Phu asked Mr. P. to deposit it into accounts he requested for the purpose of appropriating it for personal use.

After nearly 11 years on the run, Vo Nhu Vu was arrested and brought to trial.

Contacting us, Mr. LTP said that before the first instance trial took place, Duong Minh Phu's family had paid him 60 million VND. The remaining 290 million VND, for more than 3 years, he still has not received a single penny. His family and Phu's family are acquaintances, moreover, Phu is his student, so he trusts him very much. The day he went to the bank to borrow money, Phu enthusiastically guided him to complete the documents. Phu also personally took him to notarize the related procedures.

Then, Phu gave him a thick file and asked him to sign it. Phu pointed to something and he signed it without reading it. Later, he learned that the file contained illegal procedures, creating conditions for Phu to commit the act of forced labor. It is worth mentioning that in this case, dozens of people were also subjected to similar acts by Phu.

When the subject LĐCĐTS Võ Như Vũ had been missing for more than 10 years, Mrs. LTĐ. (over 70 years old, in Lê Thủy district) had almost no hope of getting her money back. Mrs. LTĐ. recalled that she used to be the head of the village's savings and credit group, so she knew Vũ. At that time, Vũ sometimes needed money and asked to borrow money from her to do business. Knowing that her family were all farmers, the money she had was for her old age, not much, Vũ said he would borrow it for 3 days and as promised, he would bring it back 3 days later.

Just like that, Vu borrowed from her a few million dong, sometimes more than ten million dong. She lent Vu money out of affection and not for anything else. Only when the amount of money borrowed increased, Vu sent her some interest to reassure her. Until before she learned that Vu had escaped, she had lent Vu more than 150 million dong. Until now, when Vu has been in prison for more than a year, she still hasn't gotten her money back...

"Lost money, got sick"

In the process of investigating cases related to the field of finance and banking, we learned that it was not by chance that these victims became victims of fraudsters. Since hearing the news that Vo Nhu Vu, the subject of the crime of "Abuse of trust to appropriate property" and "LĐCĐTS" had escaped, for more than 10 years, Ms. TTĐ. (in Le Thuy district) thought that there was no chance of getting her money back.

In 2022, upon hearing the news that Vu was arrested, Ms. D. was overjoyed, hoping to salvage some money to pay off her debt. In contact with us, Ms. D. said that she was still lucky because at the investigation agency as well as at the trial, Vu admitted to borrowing more than 2.9 billion VND from her. However, since Vu was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, Ms. D. has not yet received any compensation of the more than 2.9 billion VND. It is worth mentioning that part of this more than 2.9 billion VND was mobilized by Ms. D. from others.

Deputy Director of the Provincial People's Procuracy Nguyen Thai Binh said that it was the greed of many people that "assisted" the scammers in committing crimes. In fact, in many cases, after the criminals were brought to trial and the verdict became legally effective, the victims had little chance of getting back the money they had stolen. Meanwhile, these victims themselves were still responsible for the money that others contributed to them, because they had raised capital to lend money to the scammers.

According to the case file, from 2010 to 2011, Ms. D. lent Vo Nhu Vu the above amount of money at an agreed interest rate of 4,000 VND to 5,000 VND/1 million VND/day, equivalent to 146%-182.5%/year. Meanwhile, according to regulations, the loan interest rate is agreed upon by the parties but must not exceed 150% of the basic interest rate, that is, not exceeding 13.5%/year. If compared with Article 163 of the 1999 Penal Code, Ms. D.'s actions have enough elements to constitute the crime of "loan sharking". However, at the time of the incident, the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution had expired, so Ms. D. was fortunately not considered for criminal prosecution.

According to the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court (Provincial People's Court) Nguyen Xuan Dieu, most of the cases of LĐCĐTS related to the field of finance and banking that occurred in the province recently have left very serious and long-lasting consequences, because the amount of money the subjects swindled and appropriated is up to tens of billions of VND. Most of the subjects took advantage of the trust and greed of the victims to call for capital contributions, mobilize capital for attractive, "lucrative" investments, with the promise of high profits, and enjoy large differences. When the case was exposed, it was the victims who suffered the ultimate consequences and many victims had difficulty and almost no ability to get their money back because the subjects had completely lost the ability to pay.

Duong Cong Hop

Source: https://www.baoquangbinh.vn/phap-luat/202408/vi-sao-toi-pham-trong-linh-vuc-tai-chinh-ngan-hang-ngay-cang-phuc-tap-bai-2-vo-tinh-sap-bay-hay-tai-long-tham-2220410/