land fraud case

A fraud trial involving the purchase of state land, the name of the Mentri Besar and “brokerage” payments worth RM9.4mil finally came to a close of sorts in the Sessions Court after 14 years.
judge Sabariah Atan convicted land broker Yap You Jee, 61, bomoh Md Jhomi Md Supian, 56, and businessman Johari Mansor, 52, of cheating Solid Estate (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd director Datuk Ding Lian Cheon into believing they had obtained approval from the state executive council for the purchase of Lots 21448 and 1152 of state land.
Sentenced to jail terms of between three years and six years, the three are appealing to the High Court.
In the first conviction, the three had at a meeting at the Hyatt Regency Hotel here between June 28, 1995 and July 25, 1995 told Ding that the said land in Jalan Skudai could be acquired for RM7.5mil plus a land premium of RM15 psf.
They received a Hongkong and Shanghai Bank cashier’s order for S$3.45mil (RM6.14mil), which they cashed by using a false identity card bearing the name of the Johor Mentri Besar – Abdul Ghani Othman.
Md Jhomi and Johari were also convicted of a second charge of cheating Ding – at Hotel Tanahmas in Sibu, Sarawak on Sept 10, 1995 – into believing that they had got the state executive council to cancel the payment of the premium.
On Sept 23, they obtained a payment of RM2mil from Ding at Hotel Hyatt Regency in Johor Baru for that service.
Md Jhomi, who had posed as the Mentri Besar’s private secretary, was also convicted of cheating Ding into believing he had obtained approval to extend the lease of the two plots of land from 99 years to 999 years. He received a payment of RM1.3mil for the services.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/4/25/courts/6129101&sec=courts

these men decided to sell land which did not belong to them, and thus the result in this case seems fair. The crime that they committed goes against the rule of Nemo dat quod non habet, which simply states that no one can give what he does not have.
since the property did not belong to them in the first place, they should not have had any transactions involving it.