MINNEAPOLIS — A 51-year-old woman was sentenced Wednesday to 4.5 years in prison for four counts of theft-by-swindle in connection to an elaborate ginseng farm fraud scheme where she took a total of nearly $500,000 from nine victims.
According to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, Mia Vang was charged in Dec. 2017 but had eluded the charges until she was found in Georgia in March earlier this year. She was then brought back to Minnesota to face those charges.
In addition to the prison sentence, Vang must also pay restitution of the more than $480,000 to the nine victims she defrauded.
According to the charges, Vang orchestrated a fraud scheme between 2012 and 2014 where she convinced members of the Minnesota Hmong community to invest in a ginseng farm she claimed she owned near Wausau, Wisconsin. The charges say the fraud resulted in losses of more than $480,000, including one couple who gave Vang their life savings.
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