Chinese usury ring members sentenced in $55M trafficking case

The People's Court of central Quang Nam Province sentenced Huang Kai, 39, and Shen Jian Zhong, 50, to five years in prison for illegally trafficking money across the border.

Four Vietnamese accomplices were also sentenced to prison for from 5.5 to six years for the same charge. Their names are: Nguyen Quoc Dat, 30, Lam Thi Ngoc Loan, 42, Vo Thi Hoa, 31, and Luc Yen Hong, 42.

Two other Vietnamese Tran Phuong Linh, 39, and Nguyen Thi Khanh Linh, 25, were each sentenced to between six and nine months for usury.

In 2018, several Chinese people, including Sun Xin and Wu Jian Chao, traveled to Vietnam with the intent to commit usury, according to investigators.

They created 65 applications for such nefarious purposes.

One such application called "Great Vay" ended up loaning money to over a million people.

The group used several intermediary businesses to hide their profits. They used 5,000 bank accounts to keep the money flowing and in order to launder the funds.

Via this system and network, the group was able to traffic VND5 trillion out of Vietnam.

In 2022, Dat and Loan created a Telegram group to sell cryptocurrency.

Sun and Wu were in the group, and they took over the accounts of many Vietnamese in the group. Loan then bought cryptocurrency and transferred VND35 billion worth into the digital wallets of these accounts.

Besides sending the money into the wallets of those in the usury ring, Loan and Dat also sent VND33 billion worth of cryptocurrency to outside recipients. Authorities have accused them of having gained VND42 million from such deals.

Huang and Shen, who also sell fabrics in Vietnam, wanted to send their money back home quickly, and so they enlisted the help of Luc to convert Vietnamese dong into Chinese yuan and then transfer the money back to Huang.

Wu had already been sentenced to jail in April for money laundering and usury. Sun has already left Vietnam.

Authorities are completing documents for further proceedings, with 100 people in total set to stand trial ini the case.