Mr. Tram Be admitted his mistake in lending Pham Cong Danh 1,800 billion VND.

Mr. Tram Be and Mr. Phan Huy Khang admitted to making mistakes and conducting a superficial assessment of financial capacity when lending Pham Cong Danh 1,800 billion VND.

Mr. Tram Be - Photo: Quang Dinh

According to the investigation records, in order to obtain funds to repay a 1,700 billion VND loan at BIDV bank, on April 19, 2013, Pham Cong Danh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietnam Construction Bank (VNCB), along with Phan Thanh Mai - former General Director of VNCB, Mai Huu Khuong - Member of the Board of Directors of VNCB, and Nguyen Quoc Vien - Head of the Supervisory Board of VNCB, approached Sacombank to borrow money.

Mr. Danh was the one who directly approached Mr. Tram Be (Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Credit Committee of Sacombank) to request a loan from him.

Because of his prior relationship with Mr. Danh and knowing that Mr. Danh could not borrow money from VNCB, Mr. Tram Be agreed to lend Mr. Danh 1800 billion VND with VNCB's deposits at Sacombank as collateral.

Subsequently, Mr. Tram Be personally escorted Mr. Pham Cong Danh to meet Mr. Phan Huy Khang (General Director of Sacombank) and instructed Mr. Khang to lend Danh 1800 billion VND.

Sacombank provided loans totaling 1,800 billion VND to six shell companies owned by Pham Cong Danh. Regarding these loans, Mr. Tram Be and Mr. Phan Huy Khang provided specific statements in the investigation report of the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Ministry of Public Security.

Within just five days of Pham Cong Danh's first meeting with Tram Be, by April 24, 2013, the loans to six of Pham Cong Danh's companies were finalized.

The entire sum of 1.8 trillion VND was transferred to Pham Cong Danh's account. Mr. Danh used this money to repay debts to BIDV and for personal purposes.

When the loan repayment deadline arrived, the six companies owned by Pham Cong Danh had no money to pay, so Sacombank automatically collected the principal debt from the collateral provided by VNCB.

The loan application review process was very quick, taking only 5 days. This was acknowledged by both Mr. Tram Be and Mr. Phan Huy Khang as a flaw, as the loan applications for the six companies were either not properly assessed or only superficially assessed regarding their financial capacity.

Specifically, Mr. Tram Be testified that on April 19, 2013, Pham Cong Danh came to see him to discuss borrowing money. Mr. Be agreed on the condition that Danh had to provide collateral or a deposit. Mr. Danh agreed to transfer money to Sacombank so that Sacombank could lend it to Danh's companies. Mr. Be then introduced Danh to Mr. Phan Huy Khang.

In addition, 13 other individuals from Sacombank who carried out a series of lending activities involving this 1,800 billion VND were also questioned. Among them, Mr. Phan Dinh Tue (Deputy General Director of Sacombank) stated that he did not know Pham Cong Danh personally and carried out the lending activities under the direction of Phan Huy Khang.

According to Tuoi Tre newspaper