Two Chinese men were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison after forging visa cards and appropriating nearly US$10,000.

The People’s Court in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang on Wednesday condemned Ping Sanshi, 41, and Hao Yanjun, 28, both Chinese nationals, to 10 years and nine years behind bars, respectively, for credit card fraud.

According to the indictment, Hao partnered with an unidentified Thai woman in 2015 who mentored him in counterfeiting visa cards.

In late 2015, Hao met Ping, the director of the Thai Phong tourist company, and later became an employee of the institution.

Thai Phong Company signed a deal in January 2016 with a Da Nang-based travel agency directed by Nguyen Van Hung to offer tours in Vietnam to Chinese travelers.

Under the agreement, Thai Phong was responsible for paying its business partner some CNY510,000 ($73,875).

Acknowledging that Hao was capable of faking visa cards, Ping instructed him to  use the cards to carry out fraudulent transactions in order to cover the debt.

In April 2016, Ping and Hao met Hung in Da Nang to pay the debt using an EDC (electronic data capture) machine from Vietcombank.

Hao used 29 false visa cards to attempt 29 transactions on the device, of which only 15 were successful.

A total of VND225 million ($9,866) was appropriated and wired to Hung’s account as payment for the debt.

The illegal scheme was detected by the bank and was reported to competent authorities.

The two Chinese suspects were arrested shortly after.

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