The Hanoi police arrested two Chinese men last Thursday for trying to swindle some locals, including a law-firm employee, by selling fake gold.
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| The two men were from Jiangxi Province in China and one of them belonged to a group of professional swindlers |
A week earlier Nguyen Thai Hung, who works for a law firm in Cau Giay District, got a call from one of the Chinese.
Through an interpreter the man said he and two other friends worked at a factory in Hung Yen Province.
While digging at a construction site, they had found an ancient terracotta pot with dozens of boat-shaped gold bars and gold statues of Maitreya Buddha, he said.
Since he did not know Vietnamese laws about possessing artifacts, he said he wanted to consult Hung.
Wanting to help a prospective client and curious about the treasure, Hung told him to come to his office.
The next morning, the two Chinese men came to his office with 10 gold bars and three statues.
They used a saw to cut one of the bars. They then switched the cut pieces with real pieces of gold they had in their pockets and handed the to Hung, as they later confessed to the police.
After a jeweler certified it as real gold, Hung believed it was for real and accepted their offer to sell the entire treasure consisting of 38 gold bars and three statues for 800,000 yuan (US$125,000).
On October 20 he handed over the money but found some scratches on one of the gold bars that revealed silver underneath.
Realizing he had been conned, he secretly called the local police, who quickly came and seized the two.
The police found out after questioning that the two men were from Jiangxi Province in China and one of them belonged to a group of professional swindlers.
Last July they had deceived a man called Nguyen in Da Nang to the tune of VND2.9 billion ($139,000).
After each swindle, they would fly back to China, wait for a few months, and then return to Vietnam to look for the next victim.
The police are continuing with their investigation.