Man receives life for scamming over 1,000 in poverty alleviation fund

Tran Duc Trung, former chairman of the Poverty Support Center under Vietnam Association of Agriculture Small and Medium Enterprises, and four accomplices established the "Vietnam Hearts" program in April 2015, calling for high-interest-rate deposits.

The program collected around VND148 billion ($6.35 million) from more than 1,000 people in 16 cities and provinces by the end of that year, with the five pocketing more than VND49 billion.

Trung alone made VND26.3 billion.

His accomplices, also officials of the support center, were sentenced to between six and nine years in jail.

The court said the group’s violation was "especially serious" as they turned a program that aimed to help poor people into a scam to appropriate money.

More than 100 of the victims attended the trial. Many said they were required to deposit money into the program and have not received any support.