Florida Woman Admits $9.1 Million Scheme Selling Fake Nail Technician Licenses Through West Virginia
Hang Kim Thi Ngo used fake Florida beauty school records to get West Virginia licenses for unqualified workers, then bought homes and a $3.2 million building.
A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to running a five-year scheme that got unqualified people licensed as nail technicians in West Virginia and other states using forged school records, and that brought her $9,110,920.84.
Hang Kim Thi Ngo, 42, of Windermere, Florida, pleaded guilty on Oct. 26, 2026, to identity theft and money laundering before U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers in Huntington, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia said. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 22, 2027, and faces up to 35 years in prison. She must forfeit the full $9.1 million. The case is No. 3:26-cr-117.
Why West Virginia
The scheme leaned on West Virginia because its rules are tough, prosecutors said. The state requires a high school diploma or GED, a diploma from an accredited beauty school and a medical evaluation certificate from a licensed physician. That makes a West Virginia license more valuable, because it eases the way to licenses in other states through reciprocity.
On the West Virginia Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists’ website, the board says anyone holding a valid nail technology license from another state can transfer it by having that state’s board send a license certification and verification of training. According to prosecutors, that is the route Ngo used.
From October 2020 through September 2025, she bought falsified diplomas and transcripts from real Florida beauty schools that she knew would sell them, according to prosecutors. With those records she got a Florida nail technician license in an applicant’s name, then used it to apply for a West Virginia license through reciprocity. Co-conspirators supplied false medical certificates when an applicant skipped the exam, and her accountant, a notary, falsely notarized documents for a fee.
Salon owners paid, workers worked it off
Ngo mostly dealt with middlemen, usually salon owners, and rarely met the applicants, prosecutors said. The middlemen typically paid her and then made the applicant work off the debt in their salons. She charged by the document, including $3,500 for a West Virginia “full package.”
As one example in her plea, a West Virginia salon owner asked her to get a license for a worker. Ngo used the worker’s Social Security number and driver’s license information, had the papers falsely notarized and mailed the application from Florida to the state board on Oct. 12, 2022. When the license arrived, she mailed it to the client in Ceredo after getting paid.
The scheme was her only income, prosecutors said. She put a $640,000 cash down payment on a $3.2 million commercial building in Winchester, Virginia, bought her Windermere home for $1.95 million and bought two Orlando homes for $695,000 and $636,000. She also admitted laundering $20,000 by writing her husband a check from CEJ Trading LLC, a consulting company she set up as a front.
