Police in Hanoi said on Tuesday that they had started legal proceedings against a 29-year-old woman from Bac Giang Province for deceiving and appropriating more than VND6.2 billion (US$269,250) from 140 Vietnamese people who wanted to get a job in South Korea.

Accordingly, Than Thi Ly, 29, from Bac Giang’s Luc Ngan District, has faced the indictment for property fraud. 

Ly has been bailed as she is raising a child under 36 months old.

According to investigation documents, she took out a loan of more than VND1 billion (US$43,360) to establish Toan Cau International Trade Manpower Supply JSC, headquartered at 36 Pham Hung Street in Nam Tu Liem District, Hanoi in March 2020 to provide domestic job placement services.

From March to May 2020, the company stopped operating due to the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ly got into debt as she failed to pay bank loan interest.

In June 2020, she researched online and learned that South Korea admited arrivals with a D-6 Religious Worker visa.

She then rolled out advertisements for recruiting Vietnamese workers to work in South Korea under the D-6 Religious Worker visa category, with the purpose of collecting application fees from jobseekers to pay her debts and personal expenses.

In addition to jobseekers, Ly also appropriated money from people who used her service to marry South Koreans or study in South Korea.

Ly collected a deposit from VND10 million ($434) to $3,000 from each customer.

The woman directly provided consultancy, organized medical examinations, translated documents, and took customers to the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Hanoi to apply for a visa, so that she could make the victims believe that a visa application was really underway.

Ly asked an unknown person to create counterfeit job offers and visas to send to customers.

Toan Cau JSC was not licensed to provide labor export and overseas education consultancy services, according to investigators.

With the above tricks, Ly deceived a total of 140 people, appropriating an accumulated amount of more than VND6.2 billion.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!