Hanoi woman charged with $5.5M ‘cheap dollar’ fraud

Tran Thi Minh Hue, 44, has been charged with fraudulent appropriation of assets by Hanoi police and is set to be tried at the Hanoi People’s Court.

The police said that in 2022 Hue told three people she knew that she had access to U.S. dollars with rates higher than those of banks but lower than those on the black market.

This means the investors could gain profit by buying the “cheap dollar” from Hue and selling them at unofficial exchange points at higher rates.

When the investors gave Hue the money she would send them back part of it, saying that it was the “commission” they got from doing business with her.

She would also use part of the money to buy some dollars and gave them to the investors to establish trust.

In the last four months of 2022 Hue received VND140 billion from the three investors.

But after a while she stopped giving back the investors the dollar they had paid for and instead used their money for personal expenses.

The investors reported the matter to the police and Hue admitted to investigators that she committed the crime to pay for the debts incurred from a failed business.

The police have confiscated a number of her assets including two apartments and a Lexus car.