Trung Nguyen Group lost nearly 52 billion VND due to corrupt officials.

Constantly receiving reports from its Hanoi branch about "slow-selling and excess inventory," Trung Nguyen Group Joint Stock Company (hereinafter referred to as Trung Nguyen Group) was forced to conduct an inventory check. As a result, the Group discovered that thousands of boxes of coffee, worth nearly 52 billion VND, had been "vanished" by a group of branch officials.

At the trial on July 30th, the Hanoi People's Procuracy prosecuted Vu Huy Phong (born in 1970, residing at Ly Nam De Street, Cua Dong Ward, Hoan Kiem District) - former Director of the Hanoi Branch of Trung Nguyen Group; Dang Vu Kien (born in 1982), residing at Khuong Trung Street, Khuong Trung Ward, Thanh Xuan District, former warehouse manager; and Nguyen Hong Phong (born in 1977, residing at Nguyen Truong To Street, Truc Bach Ward, Ba Dinh District), former Head of the Supermarket Channel Sales Department, for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property". However, due to the absence of several witnesses and individuals with related rights and obligations, the trial was postponed, and the court has not yet set a date for reopening the trial.

Former Director of Trung Nguyen Group's Hanoi Branch, Vu Huy Phong, was escorted back to prison after his trial was postponed.

According to the indictment, Trung Nguyen Group conducted an inventory of goods at its Hanoi branch. During the process of comparing accounting records and the actual amount of coffee in the warehouse from January 2009 to June 2012, Trung Nguyen Group discovered a shortage of thousands of boxes of coffee, equivalent to 51.88 billion VND. Therefore, they requested the police to investigate how the goods were lost.

The investigation revealed that during the aforementioned period, Vu Huy Phong instructed Dang Vu Kien to ship goods to a Trung Nguyen coffee distributor in Hanoi, and then embezzled money from the company.

Specifically, according to Trung Nguyen Group's regulations, when selling goods to distributors, the buyer must pay in advance, corresponding to the quantity of goods to be taken. Based on this, the accounting department will issue a delivery note, and the branch is obligated to open the warehouse and deliver the exact quantity and type of goods specified on the note.

Despite the company's clear regulations, Vu Huy Phong, in his capacity as Director of the Hanoi Branch, disregarded them and repeatedly instructed Dang Vu Kien to ship goods in violation of the rules. After each order to his subordinates to ship goods, Phong would send his private driver to collect money from the distributors. Through this scheme, the former Director of the Hanoi Branch of Trung Nguyen Group embezzled more than 25.6 billion VND from the "parent company".

As the warehouse manager, Kien knew that his boss's orders were against company regulations, but out of deference, he became a very active accomplice to Phong. In addition to this, Trung Nguyen Group also discovered an unexplained shortage of goods at the Hanoi branch warehouse, amounting to over 12.9 billion VND. Therefore, according to Vietnam's leading coffee group and the authorities, Kien must be held responsible for this amount.

In another development, taking advantage of his position as Head of Supermarket Channel Sales at the Hanoi Branch, Nguyen Hong Phong colluded with external parties to fabricate claims that several supermarkets in Hanoi needed coffee, instructing warehouse staff to ship the goods. Using this fraudulent scheme, from December 2011 to May 2012, Nguyen Hong Phong illegally sold hundreds of cartons of the company's coffee, pocketing over 7 billion VND.

According to Hanoi Security