Female president sentenced to life in prison for embezzling 350 billion VND
Hong Anh was determined to have embezzled more than 350 billion VND from Vietcombank when borrowing capital for business.
After two days of trial, on the afternoon of November 4, the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Nguyen Hong Anh (aka Lisa Nguyen, 44 years old, former Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of CAS International Container Joint Stock Company - CAScon) to life in prison for the crime ofEmbezzlement of property, 17 years in prisonIntentionally violating State regulations on economic management causing serious consequences, life imprisonment.
As an accomplice, the court also sentenced Nguyen Thi Nga (aka Jennifer Nguyen, 36 years old, former head of CAScon's business department) to 8 years in prison for the crime ofEmbezzlement of property.
The court ordered CAScon Company to pay Vietcombank more than 350 billion VND - the amount Hong Anh had embezzled.
In early August, Hong Anh and Nga were tried at the Hanoi People's Court on charges of fraud and property appropriation and intentionally violating state regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences. However, the court returned the case file and found the defendants Hong Anh and Nga guilty.Embezzlement of property.
|
Hong Anh (left) and Nga at the first instance trial in August. |
According to the first instance verdict, CAScon has 55% of capital from Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin, a state-owned enterprise), the remaining 45% is contributed by Toong Goen Enterprise Co., Ltd (Taiwan). Vinashin later transferred its shares to another company, retaining 25%.
On July 23, 2008, Hong Anh was appointed General Director (later Chairman of the Board of Directors) of CAScon. In October 2010, she appointed Nga as Head of Sales.
In 2010, the United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) of the United Arab Emirates contacted CAScon to buy 10,000 containers at a price of more than 4,000 USD each.
Hong Anh proposed that UASC only sign a direct sales contract with CAScon for 1,000 containers. The female general director proposed to sell most of the remaining goods (9,000 containers) through an intermediary, Sunny Investment International Company Limited (SNI), founded by Hong Anh and Hsu Wen-Ta (Taiwan, China), headquartered in the British Virgin Islands. Hong Anh promised to give UASC a discount of 1.35%.
To execute the contract with UASC, Hong Anh used the goods purchase contract, contract appendix, memorandum of understanding and business plan to borrow more than 31 million USD from Vietcombank. To execute the contract, CAScon produced, delivered goods and received more than 39 million USD from the bank.
Based on the container sale contract, payment to the contractor (CAScon Company) will be transferred to SNI's account opened at HSBC Bank Hong Kong.
At the end of 2011, because SNI did not transfer enough money to the account, Vietcombank asked Hong Anh to provide the legal documents of this enterprise to proceed with debt collection. In order to cover up his trick, Hong Anh directed Nga to use an email as a representative of SNI to request a debt deferral from the bank.
Currently, Hong Anh has only paid Vietcombank 11 million USD... 16.7 million USD (353 billion VND) she and her accomplices are accused of embezzling.
In intentional behaviorThe court determined that from 2010 to 2011, Hong Anh signed two credit contracts with the Shipbuilding Industry Finance Company (VFC) to borrow 30 billion VND. After that, she arbitrarily sold the mortgaged assets, which were 258 20DC containers, 150 40HC containers and 1.1 million kilograms of steel, earning 38 billion VND.
Hong Anh only paid VFC 10 billion VND, the remaining 28 billion VND (including interest), the female general director used for the company's production and business activities and lost the ability to pay.