Couple who swindled $4.8 mln extradited from US to VN Huynh Van Nga and his wife, Ho Thi Ngoc Nga are seen in this file photo. Tuoi Tre On Wednesday, representatives of the US Internal Security Department handed over a woman to Vietnamese authorities who had been wanted internationally for 2 years for scamming over US$4.8 million along with her husband. At 10:30 pm on Wednesday at the Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Hồ Thị Ngọc Nga, 49, was handed over by the US to the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security’s Department Crime Prevention and Control, in the presence of a representative of the US Consul General to the city. In April 2011, HCMC Police posted two wanted notices for Nga and her husband, Huỳnh Văn Ngà, 47. On May 11, 2011, the Vietnam Interpol Office issued an international wanted notice for the couple for scamming a huge amount of money. U.S. police detained the couple on March 21, 2013 and the husband was extradited to Vietnam in July. The arrest was the result of coordination between the Vietnam Interpol Police and US police based on information and evidence provided by the Vietnamese side. The US police later tracked down the couple in Georgia and arrested them.  Scams According to the case file, in 2003, the couple set up Thien Son Phu Production and Trading Co Ltd in Tan Phu District, HCMC, with the wife acting as company director and the husband as deputy director. From 2009 to 2010, the couple signed many contracts to sell iron and steel to other companies. One of the couple is a relative of a former chairman of the board of management of a large bank in HCMC. Taking unfair advantage of this relationship, the couple tried to gain confidence in many of their business partners, who later agreed to make advance payments to the couple. However, after receiving such payments, the couple did not deliver any goods to their victims. The scammers also used a trick in which they offered to sell the same lot of goods to many buyers at the same time, and after receiving deposits from the buyers, they sent them no goods. They also borrowed money from their partners without repaying them. With such tricks, they had pocketed a total amount of nearly VND100 billion ($4.8 million). Flee The couple had set up a concrete plan to flee from Vietnam after scamming their victims. First, they spent part of the appropriated money on sending their four children abroad as students or tourists. They then created a false divorce and managed to procure a fake decision of divorce from a court in southern Ben Tre Province. On August 20, 2010, the husband used this decision and other personal papers to leave Vietnam for the US on a tourist visa. On December 17, 2010 he married an American woman in Lithonia, Georgia. As a result, the man was granted a green card to become a permanent resident in the U.S. on June 16, 2011. Meanwhile, Nga left Vietnam and went to Cambodia in late December 2010. Later, she went to another country before entering the US and reuniting with her husband in Georgia.  Meanwhile in Vietnam, after receiving many accusations by the victims of the couple’s scams, police launched an investigation into the case and hunted for them until they were arrested by the US police. TUOITRENEWS