Man with 22 wives makes millions of dollars from selling fake meteor fragments

Huy came up with the idea about two decades ago when some strangers from Ho Chi Minh City hired him to help them explore a mountain in his hometown in the Central Highlands to search for meteors.

Realizing the value and potential lure of the meteors, Huy devised a detailed plan to cheat billionaires into buying strange looking pieces of rock he claimed had fallen out of the sky.

Huy sold his house to buy a car, a diamond ring and other luxury items to pretend that he was also a billionaire. The deception became more intricate when he staged tricks to pretend the rocks were powerful enough to break glass and freeze mercury, or give anyone who touched them a shock using electricity, as many believed that only a genuine meteor could do that.

With his new billionaire persona, the fifty-year-old recruited people to help with the scam.

Their jobs were to find people interested in meteors and perform “magic tricks” to convince victims that what they were buying were genuine and powerful pieces of meteors.

In a famous case in 2012, Huy’s gang convinced a billionaire in Ho Chi Minh City to buy a fake piece of meteor for $12 million. When the victim hesitated to buy the rock, Huy contacted him separately offering to buy the rock back off him for $80 million.

The billionaire decided to buy the five-kilogram rock, expecting to make a fortune from his purchase.

The fake piece of meteor that Huy used to cheat the billionaire out of $12 million.

The billionaire paid the $12 million but when he tried to contact Huy he was nowhere to be found.

Using the same tricks, Huy conned eight billionaires across the country.

Huy lived in many different provinces, marrying 22 women who bore him 31 children. He was arrested earlier this year and according to police, he may also be involved in some murder cases.