Real estate firm director gets 16 years in prison for fraudulent property appropriation

Nguyen Quang Binh, director of Diamond Land Real Estate Company, on Friday was sentenced to 16 years in prison for creating five "ghost" projects and selling them to many people.

Binh, 39, was convicted by the People's Court of Binh Thuan province of fraud to appropriate property and had to compensate the victims more than VND50 billion ($2.13 million).

According to the indictment, from 2018 to 2020, Binh established five bogus residential areas in Phan Thiet town and two districts of Ham Thuan Bac and Ham Thuan Nam. Later, Binh made his own drawings of plots and infrastructure, and sold them widely on social networking sites with a commitment to "full legal records".

Many people believed, signed contracts to buy land, and transferred money to Binh. In addition, he also introduced his partners' apartment products to investors, collecting their money and appropriating it.

Binh was found to have appropriated more than VND57 billion ($2.42 million) from 85 customers. Accounting and sales staff of the company did not know that Binh used deceitful tricks, so they were not criminally handled.

In a similar scandal, last December, Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced Nguyen Thai Luyen, chairman of Alibaba Real Estate JSC, to life in prison on Thursday for fraudulently appropriating property. Vo Thi Thanh Mai, Luyen's wife, got a 20-year prison sentence on the same charge and a 12-year prison sentence for money laundering.

In May 2016, Luyen, who has a bachelor's degree in law, established Alibaba Real Estate JSC in Ho Chi Minh City with charter capital of VND1 billion ($42,340). Two years later, the company raised its charter capital to VND1.6 trillion ($67.74 million), but the figure only rose on paper.

Luyen also set up 22 legal entities, with owners on paper being his relatives and employees, of which 12 companies were investors of 58 bogus real estate projects in Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Binh Thuan provinces. He also made fraudulent advertisements to sell properties to thousands of people.

Alibaba promised to buy back the plots of land at a higher price, ensuring a profit of 30%, which it said would gradually increase over time.