On July 11, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Zhong Tielin, 41, and Yang Faqing, 40, both Chinese, to 18 and 17 and a half years in prison, respectively, for the fraudulent appropriation of property.

According to the verdict, Zhong Tielin, Yang Faqing and A Ling had entered Vietnam to find a Vietnamese person who could speak Chinese to aid them in their scheme.

Beforehand they had brought boat-shaped yellow metal bars and what appeared to be very old scrolls written in Chinese script into the country.

On October 17, 2011, A Ling contacted the head of the Lawyers Office in Hanoi , Do Thai Han, 35, over the internet and asked for an assessment of some objects he claimed he had discovered.

Han later asked a person who could speak Chinese for help. The following day, two accomplices of A Ling’s took a statue of Buddha and 10 yellow metal bars to Han’s office. After chipping off a small piece of gold to give to Han to test, Faqing swapped the real gold bar for a fake one when Han was not looking.

After testing the sample, Han agreed to buy three statues of Buddha and 38 bars.

On October 19, 2011, they then asked Han to pay them 125,000 USD for their gold. During the transaction, Han suspected something was wrong and called the authorities, uncovering their fraudulent scheme.

Further investigation revealed that almost two months previously, Faqing had called a Vi To Nam in the central coastal city of Da Nang and had sold him counterfeit objects for 100,000 USD.

After defrauding Nam of 100,000 USD, A Ling gave 30,000 USD to each of his accomplices and two of the defendants returned home across the border at Huu Nghi Border Gate.-VNA