On September 15, the Investigation Police in Hanoi announced a hunt for former deputy director general of Protechno Vietnam, who is on the run after swindling her Japanese partner of thousands of US dollars.
Dao Thanh Nhi, a resident on Huynh Thuc Khang Street in Dong Da District in Hanoi, and former deputy director general of Protechno Vietnam has been indicted on charges of “abusing trust to appropriate assets”.
The Investigation Police in Hanoi have informed that Dao Thanh Nhi had taken advantage of Sugimoto Hiroyuki, chairman of Sugitec Company, who had expressed a wish to invest in Vietnam, to swindle him of thousands of US dollars.
Nhi appropriated US$867,000 off her Japanese partner under pretense of purchasing a land plot for a factory to make car spare parts in Pho Noi A Industrial Zone in the northern province of Hung Yen. In 2008, Sugimoto Hiroyuki arrived in Vietnam and Nhi showed him a certified copy of a certificate of investment. The Japanese man then transferred US$1.1 million to her account to pay for the cost of construction and other expenses.
After Sugimoto Hiroyuki reported the case to the police, Nhi produced papers with signatures of him to prove that the Japanese had leased the entire land to set up Protechno Vietnam Company and also other documents showing that the Japanese national had used the money from the joint account to pay her.
However, after verification, investigators concluded that all these papers had been forged by Nhi and prosecuted her for fraud.
Police obtained an arrest warrant and raided her house on September 14, but by then Nhi had fled her residential premises and is now in hiding.
