Former Director of SeABank branch arrested

Mr. Thai Tran Thong, former Director of SeABank Da Nang branch, was arrested for violating regulations on lending in the operations of credit institutions.

On the morning of November 5, Da Nang City police issued a decision to prosecute and temporarily detain three officials, former leaders of the Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) Da Nang branch, for four months.

Three defendants, including Mr. Thai Tran Thong, former Director of SeABank Da Nang branch, Hoang Hieu Trung, Head of Le Loi transaction office (SeABank Da Nang) and Nguyen An, a bank employee, were arrested for violating regulations on lending in the operations of credit institutions.

Defendant Nguyen An, bank employee.

According to the investigation agency, since 2007, SeABank has granted a credit limit of 120 billion VND to Gia Bao Company Limited, whose director is Ms. Hua Thi Mong Hoa. The credit limit contract is valid from November 27, 2007 to November 27, 2008.

In which, Gia Bao Company Limited mortgaged assets at the bank, which are real estate and circulating inventory goods, as collateral.

Goods in stock include scratch cards, SIM cards, phones and phone accessories. The plan proposed by SeABank is to appoint an independent warehouse keeper to manage the above circulating inventory.

At that time, Thai Tran Thong was Deputy Director of SeABank Da Nang branch (later director), signed a three-party warehouse protection contract.

However, defendant Thong later did not appoint an independent warehouse keeper, so he could not manage the warehouse, while Gia Bao Company's warehouse was mortgaged property, leading to the situation where Gia Bao Company falsified the number of goods and sold the goods in the warehouse without SeABank knowing.

In addition, Hoang Hieu Trung (at that time a credit specialist of the branch) and Nguyen An, a credit support specialist, were assigned to periodically check the warehouse and manage inventory, but both did not check or compare the actual data between the inventory report of Gia Bao Company Limited with the actual quantity of goods, leading to SeABank not being able to manage the goods in the warehouse.

By December 2008, when it was time to pay off the debt, Gia Bao Company Limited still had overdue debt of more than 100 billion VND. SeABank inspected the warehouse and discovered that the goods in the warehouse were not as reported.

At this time, the value of the goods in the warehouse was only 14.5 billion VND while Gia Bao Company falsely declared 184 billion VND. Therefore, SeABank forced Ms. Hoa to pay money, and the bank also liquidated the real estate to recover capital. However, because there was no goods in the warehouse, Ms. Hoa could only recover more than 45 billion VND, while SeABank could not collect the remaining 55.2 billion VND./.

According to vov