Bank officials used people's land ownership certificates to create fraudulent loan applications.
A man in Phu Xuyen, Hanoi, was completely unaware that a bank official had used his house's land ownership certificate to create fraudulent loan applications for others.
The Hanoi People's Court recently sentenced Nguyen Thi Tra Ly (born in 1965, former Agribank employee) to 11 years in prison and Le Van Manh (born in 1973, also from Phu Xuyen) to 7 years in prison for fraud and appropriation of property.
Previously, in July 2018, Mr. Le Van M. (born in 1963, residing in Phu Xuyen) accused his cousin, the defendant Manh, of using his family's land title deed as collateral for a bank loan.
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| Bank officials used people's land ownership certificates to create fraudulent loan applications. |
The investigation determined that in January 2007, due to a need for business capital, Mạnh approached Mr. M. to borrow his family's land title deed, claiming it was to use as collateral for loans from others, not for loans from credit institutions. Mr. M. agreed and handed over the land title deed to Mạnh.
Having obtained the land ownership certificate, Mạnh went to the Phú Minh branch of Agribank to meet with Ms. Lý to ask for her help in applying for a 90 million VND loan.
Ms. Ly received the information and the land ownership certificate in Mr. M's name, then prepared a loan application, a business plan, and a request for registration of a guarantee using land use rights and assets attached to the land... according to the bank's prescribed forms, and then gave them to Manh to sign.
Manh forged Mr. M.'s signature (in the guarantor section of the guarantee registration application and the guarantee contract using land use rights and assets attached to the land), then gave it to his wife to sign in the guaranteed party section and handed it back to Ms. Ly.
Ms. Ly did not meet with Mr. M. to check if he agreed to use his land title as collateral for Manh's loan, nor did she conduct an appraisal of the mortgaged property (house and land) to obtain confirmation for Manh's loan application.
Ms. Ly even had someone forge the signature of Mr. M's wife, who was acting as guarantor, and then went to the commune chairman to request confirmation.
After completing the fraudulent documents, Ms. Ly submitted the loan application to her superiors for approval and signed the credit agreement.
After receiving a disbursement of 90 million VND, Mạnh continued to borrow from the bank several more times. Sometimes it was 100 million VND, other times it was 500 million VND. Mạnh used the money from each subsequent loan to pay off the principal and interest of the previous loan.
According to the allegations, all three loans, despite procedural fraud, have been fully repaid and therefore did not cause any loss to the bank.
The bank was scammed.
Following these successful transactions, in September 2009, Ms. Ly and Manh continued to create a loan application for Manh to borrow 500 million VND from the Phu Minh Transaction Office, a branch of Agribank Phu Xuyen.
Defendant Ly fabricated guarantee and mortgage contracts. Knowing that the loan was unsecured as required by regulations, the bank officer still formally completed the loan application with collateral to provide Le Van Manh with a 500 million VND loan under the credit agreement dated September 15, 2009.
This time, when the deadline arrived, Mạnh failed to fulfill his debt repayment obligations and instead misappropriated the entire amount from Agribank Phú Xuyên, Phú Minh branch.
On April 18, 2019, the bank sent a letter demanding that Mạnh pay over 1.4 billion VND, including both principal and interest. The bank also requested the investigating agency to clarify Mạnh's violations and those of related individuals.
According to Mr. M and his wife's testimony, neither of them signed any document agreeing to allow Mạnh to mortgage the land title deed in his name to borrow money from the bank.
