Trial underway for fraud ring leader who swindled over 100 billion VND.

The trial is expected to last four days due to the large number of victims and the many details that need to be clarified.

On the morning of September 16th, the People's Court of Lam Dong province opened the first-instance trial against Le Thi Lai (born in 1964, residing in Tuyen Quang commune, Lam Dong province) for the crime of defrauding and appropriating over 117 billion VND.

According to the indictment, the informal lending scheme (a form of rotating savings and credit association) organized by Le Thi Lai in late 2020 alone had 947 participants with a total of 19,043 shares. Of these, 203 people were defrauded of a total of more than 117 billion VND.

Defendant Le Thi Lai at the trial.

According to the indictment, since 2005, Le Thi Lai organized rotating savings schemes with many people, mainly monthly schemes. Initially, the schemes proceeded normally, with a small number of participants. Lai collected and paid out the savings in full to the participants, so more and more people trusted her and joined the schemes.
From 2017 onwards, Le Thi Lai opened multiple rotating savings schemes simultaneously, leading to an imbalance in collecting and paying out contributions, resulting in losses and inability to repay. This forced her to open many new schemes to use money from later participants to pay earlier participants.

In 2020, Lai spread false information that many people were "selling lottery tickets" to entice players to buy back their lottery shares at high prices. 295 people believed her and participated, contributing a total of over 156 billion VND. Lai only used a small portion of this money to pay interest; the rest she embezzled and used to pay off debts and for personal expenses. By January 2021, when she became unable to repay her debts, she fled the area. According to the indictment, the lottery scheme organized by Le Thi Lai at the end of 2020 alone had 947 participants with a total of 19,043 lottery shares. Of these, 203 people were defrauded of a total of over 117 billion VND.

Regarding civil liability, 202 victims demanded that Le Thi Lai compensate them for a total of over 116 billion VND that she had embezzled. Only victim LTBH did not request compensation from Le Thi Lai for the embezzled amount of 768,400,000 VND.

Source: https://baolamdong.vn/xet-xu-chu-hui-lua-dao-hon-100-ti-dong-391693.html