Businessman who cons beauty queen arrested

Police from the Ministry of Public Security has detained chairman and director of the Phuc An Thinh Construction and Trading Joint Stock Company for conning many people, including 2006 Miss Sea Vu Ngoc Diep, out of at least VND18 billion (US$860,000).

>> Beauty queen duped in Ho Chi Minh City land deal

Truong Ngoc Dung, 42, has been charged with “swindling to appropriate assets” and “counterfeiting documents of state agencies and organizations,” police said.

The Ho Chi Minh City police earlier said it received complaints from many people, including 2006 Miss Sea Vu Ngoc Diep, accusing Dung and his company of forging documents to purport as a land dealer.

Diep, a Hanoi native, told the police she had signed a contract with the Phuc An Thinh last August to buy two plots of land at the Thanh My Loi housing project in District 2.

Under the terms of the contract, she was to receive possession of the land no later than January 31, 2011. The land cost VND4.54 billion (US$221,000) and Diep paid VND1 billion as an advance.

Phuc An Thinh executives had told Diep the company was authorized by Phu Nhuan One-member Housing Construction and Trading Company Limited, the project developer, to sell the land plots.

The deadline came and went but there was no word from Phuc An Thinh. When Diep went to its office to seek an explanation, the company told her to wait.

A company representative then tried to assuage her with what seemed a document issued by Phu Nhuan that authorized the company to sell land in the project. But in late May, when she visited the project site, Diep discovered someone else was occupying her land.

Another victim was Nguyen Van Huan, director of the Dat Vang Real Estate Joint Stock Company and the Technology Key Co., Ltd., both located in HCMC’s District 3, who reported to the police that Dung had swindled him of VND17 billion ($815,000).

Some complaints against Phuc An Thinh and deposit agreements made between the company and land buyers (Photo: Lao Dong)

Huan paid the amount to Dung as a security for several business contracts signed between them. But as Dung later failed to execute the contracts, he did not return the money to Huan.

Huan said Dung showed him a decision on land allocation, which the latter said had been issued by the District 3 People’s Committee, as evidence for his execution of one of the signed contracts.

Huan later discovered the document was fake.

The police are expanding their investigation to clarify Dung’s swindling activities and identify how much money he had actually appropriated from his victims.