The two defendants, Nguyen Thai Dien and Dao Nguyen Nghi, during the trial.
On June 6 and 7, 2025, the People’s Court of Da Nang City tried and sentenced two defendants, Nguyen Thai Dien and Dao Nguyen Nghi, for “fraudulent appropriation of property.” During the trial, both defendants gave numerous reasons to justify their criminal behavior, but they could not hide the deceitful nature of their actions.
According to the case file, in August 2020, Central Warehouse Joint Stock Company (Central Warehouse) was established with the main business of trading agricultural products. Nguyen Thai Dien (born 1984, residing in Hai Chau District, Da Nang) served as CEO, and Dao Nguyen Nghi (born 1982, residing in Lien Chieu District, Da Nang) was the Vice CEO. According to the business registration dossier, Central Warehouse had a chartered capital of VND 8 billion, but in reality, the shareholders did not contribute any capital, and the company had no operational apparatus. Instead, it used its legal entity to issue invoices for the vegetable, fruit, and crop trading activities conducted by Dien.
Despite lacking even a single legitimate store, Dien and Nghi boasted that they would establish 3,000 sales outlets nationwide and soon list their company on the stock exchange with a valuation of thousands of billions of dong. They fabricated the number of shares, with Dien claiming to own 93.1 million shares and Nghi holding 7 million shares, and then proceeded to sell these “virtual” shares across social media platforms and fake “wealth creation” seminars and events.
To enhance their appeal, Dien inflated the virtual capital from VND 8 billion to VND 200 billion and artificially lowered the share price from VND 80,000 to VND 2,000 per share to entice small investors. They also promised a whopping 30% commission for referring new investors. In reality, this was a ploy to attract capital contributions through a multi-level marketing model, using funds from new investors to pay off earlier ones.
Using these deceptive tactics, from December 2020 to October 2022, Nguyen Thai Dien and Dao Nguyen Nghi defrauded 566 victims across many provinces and cities in Vietnam, appropriating nearly VND 39.3 billion.
To prolong their scam, Dien and Nghi employed various sophisticated schemes, including falsifying financial reports, hiring fake auditing units to legitimize their “virtual revenue,” and even outlining a roadmap for enterprise equitization and stock exchange listing to create an illusion of development. When investors started to become suspicious, the duo established additional companies to lure victims into buying Fumart brand franchising rights or investing in new units. They also developed a professional-looking Fumart app and website to further their deceptive scheme.
Given the organized nature of their crimes, the significant damage caused, and the large number of victims, the Da Nang City People’s Court sentenced Nguyen Thai Dien to life imprisonment and Dao Nguyen Nghi to 20 years in prison, both for “fraudulent appropriation of property.”
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