Vu Thi Hoa at the investigation agency

From fake medical treatment, forging martyrs’ graves

From 2011 to 2014, Hoa together with her husband Chu Xuan Thu and others formed a group to locate the graves of martyrs with sophisticated tricks such as purchasing ancient military tools, or even burying buffalo bones and cow bones in the forest to fake the remains of martyrs, which helped them easily swindle martyrs’ relatives. This group has been ongoing with many typical cases done in the provinces of Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Tay Ninh, Dak Nong and elsewhere.

Hoa even returned home in Yen Bai to set up an altar for regular gatherings to chant prayers. She also did unreliable fortune-telling, and offered medical treatments to sick people by giving them coconut water and some types of tubers and leaves of unknown origin. In peak times, 40 to 60 people from other localities joined Hoa's spiritual medical examinations and treatments.

In 2015, Military District 7, after detecting signs of deception, banned all operations by the couple within the area. When requested by authorities to authenticate their suspicious activities, Vu Thi Hoa, in a twinkling, fled the locality.

Snake skin serves the psychic’s fraud

Hoa even returned home in Yen Bai to set up an altar for regular gatherings to chant prayers. She also did some unreliable fortune-telling, offered medical treatments to sick people by giving them coconut water and some types of tubers and leaves of unknown origin. In some peak times, there were 40 to 60 people from other localities joining Hoa's spiritual medical examination and treatment.

In 2015, Military District 7 after detecting signs of deception, banned all operations from the couple within the area. When requested by authorities to authenticate their suspicious activities, Vu Thi Hoa, in a twinkling, fled the locality.

Cunning scams

Gilded metal blocks seized by the police

In 2016, Vu Thi Hoa established a non-business Forestry and Medicinal Trading One Member Limited Liability Company (headquartered in Ngoc Thanh commune, Phuc Yen city) specializing in fortune telling and spiritual medical cures. Tens of billions can be a pretty penny for such a scammer.

The woman had someone dig a tunnel of about 30m deep in the courtyard of her house, then placed in 27 tons of gilded metal block, with 1kg of authentic gold mixed in to fool villagers’ eyes. Thu provided great help to his wife's cheating by purchasing many species of snakes with teeth and venom removed, then stuffed their mouths with fake colored stones, which supported his wife’s tricks later.

The scammer contacted Mr. N.V.D for help and expressed her wish to hand over the gold blocks to the State with a multi-day ceremony as she explained this was spiritual gold. After the deal to transfer seven gilded metal blocks (251kg) to Mr. N.V.D, Hoa borrowed 4.5 billion Vietnamese dong from this man to hold the ceremony. During the process, two prepared snakes were released into the ceremony area. At the same time, Hoa caught them to free the fake pearls from their mouth as an act to gain trust from witnesses.

The cellar dug for gold store in Hoa’s house

Hoa asked Mr. N.V.D to place VND10 billion on gold-plated metal blocks for a live release, as a mandatory part of the ceremony. With no doubts, the victim did. For a few days, the fraudster continued to ask for an additional VND70 billion, yet Mr. N.V.D was not able to provide that amount of money for the offerings, so Hoa left, leaving seven fake gold blocks.

Mr. N.V.D then decided to have the gold examined and found out most of it was counterfeit. Shortly after, the "psychic" swiftly filed an application to the Criminal Police Department - Ministry of Public Security to denounce Mr. N.V.D of appropriating her 251kg of gold.

Police agency in investigation process

After an investigation and verification process, the Criminal Police Department of the Vinh Phuc Provincial Police Department did not prosecute the case according to Hoa's denunciation since they detected and clarified a series of her fraudulent acts to appropriate property. Expanding the case, the police determined that, with similar tricks, Hoa also cheated to usurp more than VND20 billion from Mr. N.H.S from the central province of Ha Tinh.

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