Western seafood giants 'fall off their horses'

Business losses, wasteful spending, and debts of thousands of billions of dong have caused many seafood tycoons in the Mekong Delta to go bankrupt or get into trouble with the law.

1. Phan Ba ​​Tong - Thien Ma Seafood

Coming from a well-off family in Ca Mau, Phan Ba ​​Tong (42 years old) was well-educated, especially good at English. Around 2000, he worked for an American businessman in the field of seafood import and export. Being talented and agile, Tong was asked to cooperate in opening an agency to supply seafood to the US, mainly tra and basa fillets. Thanks to his ability to arrange stable inputs and competitive costs, his products were increasingly exported to the US. After that, some owners of tra fish processing factories for export cooperated well and sponsored his business. From then on, a new door was opened for this Can Tho seafood tycoon.

In 2005, Mr. Tong established Thien Ma Seafood Import-Export Company Limited.With favorable business and prestige, he was supported by many banks. From there, he successively built 3 seafood processing factories; 12 closed aquaculture farms with a scale of 100 hectares, ensuring a source of raw materials of 40,000 tons per year. Reports from the functional sector show that at peak times, his company exported 50-70 million USD per year, creating jobs for 3,000-4,000 workers...

It was also from this "success" that he began to spend lavishly, such as buying a Hummer H2 supercar from the US, license plate 3333 and a Camry car with license plate 9999. In particular, he also "spent money like water" so every time he went to entertain guests, he had many "long legs" to serve him singing and playing. One time, a senior business in Tay Do invited him to his house for a drink, he arranged a 16-seat car to carry more than a dozen singers (half of a reformed opera troupe in the West) to sing and serve alcohol with a generous "tip".

By 2010, the Vietnamese pangasius industry entered a period of crisis, and Phan Ba ​​Tong's company was also caught in this harsh spiral. Because of the large amount of debt owed to banks and the high interest rates, Thien Ma's financial situation was unbalanced. In addition, he borrowed new capital to pay off old debts, so he was increasingly in debt. At the end of 2012, Thien Ma continued to suffer losses, unable to pay off nearly 600 billion VND in debt to banks in Can Tho, Hau Giang, and businesses and fish farmers... At the same time, he called on investors and debt trading companies to participate in restructuring; requested banks to postpone debts, but to date the financial situation has not improved.

Due to a debt of up to 700 billion VND and the inability to pay, on the afternoon of March 31, Mr. Tong and the Chief Accountant of Thien Ma Company were arrested by the Economic Police Department (C46, Ministry of Public Security).

2. Lam Ngoc Khuan - Phuong Nam Seafood

As a famous businessman and trusted by many credit institutions, Mr. Lam Ngoc Khuan, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phuong Nam Food Processing Joint Stock Company (Soc Trang) directed his employees to use many tricks to "gut" the bank.

Specifically, from 2008 to the end of 2012, Mr. Khuân directed the creation of false and inflated figures on frozen shrimp inventories to mortgage and withdraw money from 5 banks. When completing loan procedures, Phuong Nam Company had to commit to "only buying raw shrimp, paying workers' salaries, buying equipment, upgrading and repairing, and implementing shrimp export contracts". However, most of the loans from tens to hundreds of billions of VND at banks were used for the wrong purposes.

The total amount of money Phuong Nam borrowed from many banks was over 16,000 billion VND. Of which, over 9,789 billion VND was said to have been misused, including over 9,594 billion VND for debt repayment; 142.7 billion VND for real estate business, joint venture - investment with KM Phuong Nam Company; the remaining 52 billion VND was appropriated by Mr. Khuân.

According to the investigation agency, due to 5 consecutive years of business losses leading to insolvency, Mr. Khuân directed his daughter and subordinates to create fake documents to continue borrowing money. Of the 19 fake financial reports showing profitable business results to send to the bank and the tax department submitted by the former accountant of Phuong Nam Seafood, Lam Minh Man, Mr. Khuân signed and approved 13 copies, his daughter Lam Ngoc Han 4 copies, and deputy director Trinh Thi Hong Phuong 2 copies. In addition, this group also created fake reports on the export, import, and inventory of frozen shrimp to increase the value from 123 billion VND to 747 billion VND and used a set of raw shrimp purchase documents to make many copies to include in the mortgage file.

For the largest villa in Soc Trang located next to Phuong Nam Seafood, Mr. Khuân borrowed money from the bank to build it for the purpose of using as a company office, but then transferred the name to his wife and Ms. My was granted a certificate of house and land use rights. During this time, the former Chairman of Phuong Nam Company asked the accountant and his daughter to advance over 71 billion VND but only returned over 65 billion, mainly for entertaining guests and going on business trips abroad. The remaining nearly 6 billion was not settled, embezzled and then fled.

The results of the financial appraisal showed that from 2008 to 2012, Phuong Nam Seafood lost over 996 billion VND and the total value of mortgaged assets was only nearly 640 billion VND.The investigation conclusion also determined that the former Chairman of Phuong Nam Company, his daughter and subordinates defrauded and appropriated over 471 billion VND; Man and Phuong and their accomplices helped Mr. Khuân defraud and appropriate over 720 billion VND.

Deadlock, Mr. Khuân and his sonfled abroad while credit institutions handled the debt of nearly 1,700 billion VND. Currently, heThe Ministry of Public Security issued an international arrest warrant, and 25 bank officials were sentenced to between 2 and 14 years in prison by the court of first instance.

3. Pham Thi Dieu Hien - Binh An Seafood

Starting her business nearly 20 years ago in Soc Trang with the wood business, Ms. Pham Thi Dieu Hien, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Bianfishco, quickly became one of the big tycoons in the Mekong Delta and also became the biggest debtor in this region when the authorities intervened and discovered that Binh An Seafood Joint Stock Company and Ms. Dieu Hien herself were heavily in debt and unable to pay with an amount of up to thousands of billions of VND.

Specifically, at the end of 2012, the authorities discovered that Bianfishco was a debtor to 10 commercial banks with a total outstanding debt of up to 1,300 billion VND. Of the total debt mentioned above, over 1,200 billion VND was Bianfishco's debt, the rest was owed to Dieu Hien Construction & Trading Company Limited and Ms. Pham Thi Dieu Hien personally.

Not only does Bianfishco owe thousands of billions of dong to banks, it also owes farmers 264 billion dong and taxes of about 11.5 billion dong.

When she was no longer able to pay and was being chased for debt, Ms. Dieu Hien quietly went to the US under the pretext of medical treatment. Mr. Tran Van Tri, Ms. Dieu Hien's husband, was the person who appointed and authorized her to be the General Director of Bianfishco. From this time, her company was approved by Saigon - Hanoi Joint Stock Bank to invest capital and signed a guarantee commitment to release the collateral.

One of the assets released from mortgage was 25 million shares owned by Ms. Pham Thi Dieu Hien (Mr. Tri’s wife). These shares were then transferred to SHB so that this bank could hold 50% of Bianfishco’s charter capital (replacing Ms. Hien) and become a founding shareholder of Binh An Company.

VDB also committed to creating conditions for Bianfishco to change its business registration certificate with the legal representative name being Mr. Tran Van Tri and at the same time requested the Department of Planning and Investment of Can Tho city to record SHB as a shareholder holding 50% of Bianfishco.

Although the company has been run by a new owner, its business situation is still not very bright. Ms. Hien's creditors still see no hope of recovering their money.

Besides the famous tycoons who have fallen, the seafood industry has also witnessed dozens of businessmen being brought to justice on charges of fraud and property appropriation...

Typically, Mr. Nguyen Huu Thanh (former General Director of Dai Duong Food Joint Stock Company) was arrested when the company owed VDB about 55.5 billion VND in principal and interest. Or Mr. Huynh Minh Trung (former Director of Nhat Duc Seafood Company Limited, Ca Mau), Tran Tan Hai (former Director of Viet Hai Import-Export and Processing Company Limited), Phan Minh Nhat (Deputy Director of Minh Chau Seafood Processing Company Limited) also fell into legal trouble for the crime of fraud and appropriation of assets.

According to VNE