A 29-year-old Nigerian man and two Cameroonians have been sentenced to a total of 49 years in jail for defrauding two Vietnamese women to a sum of VND1.5 billion ($65,800).
The men identified as, Ifeanyi Matthew Anthony, Cameroonians Nguyen Hang Tcheuko Minh, 36, and Mothe De Fouda Paul Martial, 30 were sentenced to 18 years, 16 years and 15 years respectively.
They were sentenced to jail by the Can Tho People’s Court in southern Vietnam for “obtaining property by fraud”.
The three men joined a group of African fraudsters, who are led by a man identified as Papa, who contacted women on Facebook to defraud them through various schemes.
It was learnt that at times the Vietnamese women would help the men receive large sums of money which is to be given to members of the group when they arrive to live in Vietnam and are afterwards entitled to 10 percent of the money.
However, the women are asked to pay “customs fees” first in order to receive the money.
Another scheme was to advertise a $100,000 solution that could be used to make money from blank paper.
The three defendants tricked a woman from Can Tho and another from the central province of Phu Yen between December 2017 and April 2018 who have been exploited of more than VND1 billion and VND528 million respectively.
Minh and Martial were arrested by Can Tho police in April while Anthony was arrested shortly after.
While Minh admitted to his crime, Anthony and Martial said they were only following Papa’s instructions.
