Property developer jailed for life after selling non-existent projects

Nguyen Thanh Hung, 29, CEO of Binh Duong CityLand Real Estate Trading JSC, was sentenced to life imprisonment for "fraudulent appropriation of property."

Four others who are staff and shareholders at the company received prison terms from 12 to 20 years each, as announced by a court in Binh Duong on Wednesday.

According to the verdict, from 2018 to 2019, the defendants bought many plots of agricultural land in Bau Bang and Phu Giao districts, and then applied for permission to build housing projects.

Although the applications had not been approved, Hung and the defendants still set up seven property projects named Green City, Green City 2, Green City 3, Happy Home, Happy Home 2, Phuc Long City, Phu Thinh.

Hung then hired hundreds of employees to set up sales departments to find customers.

Those employees spread out information about the projects, advertised them to customers, and assured them that all houses were fully legal and eligible for transfer.

Buyers were provided with a detailed plan of the project and promised to have the legal ownership certificate after six months to one year.

When organizing meetings with buyers, the group hired construction equipment to work on the land plot to create the impression that all projects were under construction.

Within two years, Hung and his accomplices sold non-existent houses to 384 people for VND162 billion (US$6.6 million).

So far, they have returned just VND18 billion to the victims.