Police in Hanoi have asked the local prosecutor’s office to prosecute Dao Thanh Nhi, the director of Hanoi-based Kinhi Mechanical Co Ltd and deputy general director of Protechno Vietnam, for cheating a large amount of money from her Japanese partner.

The police made the proposal after completing their investigation into the case in which Nhi, of Hanoi’s Dong Da District, cheated a Japanese entrepreneur, Sugimoto Hiroyuki, general director of Protechno Vietnam, a joint venture set up by him and Nhi.   The 36-year-old businesswoman has been charged with “abusing trust to appropriate assets” after evidence showed that she cheated Hiroyuki, who had lodged an accusation against her, police said. Nhi escaped on September 14, 2012 when police came to her house to serve her an arrest warrant, but she was arrested five days later while  hiding in HCMC. Hiroyuki, who is also chairman of the management board of the Sugitec Co Ltd in Japan, reported to police that Nhi, the wife of a Japanese friend of his, had appropriated at least US$868,000 from him.

Hiroyuki said he met Nhi in April 2006 and the woman promised that she would assist him in making investments in Vietnam. She later asked him to join her in buying a 15,000 square meter land plot in the Pho Noi A Industrial Park in Hung Yen Province to establish the said joint venture. Hiroyuki agreed to buy 8,000 square meters while Nhi bought the remaining land and carried out the procedures for setting up the joint venture. In 2008, when Hiroyuki arrived in Vietnam, Nhi showed him a certified copy of the certificate of investment. She then asked him to sign a number of blank paper sheets that she said she would use in carrying out procedures related to the company. Hiroyuki then transferred US$1.1 million to the joint venture’s account to pay for the cost of construction and other expenses.

The joint venture began operating in March 2008, but after only three months Nhi demanded that it be shut down, since it had not paid rent for the land it had leased from Kinhi. After Hiroyuki reported the case to police, Nhi showed them papers with his signatures to prove that he had leased the entire plot to set up Protechno Vietnam. The Vietnamese woman also presented documents showing that Hiroyuki had used the money from the joint venture’s account to pay her for his debt. However, after verification, investigators concluded that all of the papers had been forged by Nhi.

Nhi’s acts have caused a total loss of nearly $868,000 to the Japanese investor, investigators confirmed.