'Thousand-billionaire' couple entangled in legal trouble

By creating virtual sales, with revenue of up to 1,600 billion VND, director Nguyen Quoc Dat and his wife defrauded the bank of a large amount of money.

On October 26, the Hanoi People's Court brought Nguyen Quoc Dat (born in 1976, in Soc Son, Hanoi), Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung (born in 1977) and her accomplices to trial for the crimes of Abuse of trust to appropriate property, lack of responsibility causing serious consequences, Intentionally violating State regulations on economic management causing serious consequences and Violating regulations on lending in the activities of credit institutions.

According to the indictment, in 2003, Mr. Dat established Hong Trang Company Limited, holding the position of director. Mr. Dat's wife, Ms. Nhung, held the position of accountant. Five years later, defendant Nhung established Luong Tho Company to trade in steel products.

The defendants in court.

Dat and Nhung used the legal entities of the two companies Luong Tho and Hong Trang to sign steel purchase and sale contracts with each other, in order to transfer money back and forth to each other, creating a large cash flow, showing large sales through the BIDV Tay Ha Noi bank account. Accordingly, Hong Trang Company had a revenue of 200 billion VND in 2009, and a revenue of 1,600 billion VND in 2010.

By creating virtual sales, Hong Trang Company was approved by the Bank Credit Council for AA rating, enjoying preferential policies when signing credit contracts and guarantee contracts with banks, with collateral only needing to be determined at 50%-30% of the guaranteed value.

Taking advantage of the steel purchase contract with Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Joint Stock Company, the guarantee letter and the credit contracts of BIDV Tay HN and Vietcombank, the defendants received 32,984 tons of steel, sold it all, collected the money for other purposes, did not pay Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Company, and appropriated 210.9 billion VND.

The indictment stated that defendant Nhung took advantage of the steel purchase contract with the Hanoi Branch, the guarantee letter from BIDV Tay Ha Noi and used fraudulent tricks to create 3 fake purchase contracts with inactive LLCs to conceal the appropriation of more than 51 billion VND from the Quang Minh Transaction Office of BIDV Tay Ha Noi.

Bank staff violations

The reason why Nhung was able to successfully abuse trust and appropriate the above amount of money was because some officers of Quang Minh transaction office violated regulations on lending in credit institution activities.

In addition, Nhung also committed the act of abusing trust to appropriate the assets of the Hanoi Branch as follows: In April 2011, Dat's Hong Trang Company received 1,390 tons of iron, worth more than 21 billion VND. The defendant sold the goods but did not pay. Nhung was able to do this because some officials of Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Joint Stock Company - Hanoi Branch also committed violations, leading to the failure to recover more than 21 billion VND.

According to the investigation results, a number of officials of the Hanoi branch - Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Joint Stock Company including Duong Ba Hoa (former Director), Nguyen Viet (former Head of General Planning Department), Tran Van Song (Head of Delivery Team) were determined to have falsified documents requesting goods, leading to the consequence - the branch sold steel beyond the bank's guarantee to Luong Tho Company, causing a loss of 21.1 billion VND.

In connection with the case, four officers of the Quang Minh transaction office of BIDV Tay Ha Noi were prosecuted for violating regulations on lending in the operations of credit institutions, including Hoang Minh Ngoc (former Director), Pham Quang Vinh and Do Van Thuong, Deputy Head of the office; Nguyen Manh Ha, customer relations officer.

After consideration, the panel requested to return the file for further investigation.

According to vietnamnet