Stock price manipulation case at FLC: Arrest of Mr. Trinh Van Quyet's sister

On April 4, Lieutenant General To An Xo - Chief of Office and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Security - said that the Investigation Police Agency (C01) has issued a decision to prosecute and execute an order to temporarily detain Ms. Trinh Thi Minh Hue, an officer of the accounting department of FLC Group.

Ms. Hue is being investigated for "stock market manipulation".

Mrs. Trinh Thi Minh Hue is his biological sister.Trinh Van Quyet.

This is the latest development in the C01 investigation into the stock market manipulation case that occurred at FLC Group.

The above decision has been approved by the Supreme People's Procuracy.

Investigators searched the headquarters of FLC Group on the evening of March 29. Photo: HA TUAN

Previously, on March 29, the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Police Agency issued a decision to prosecute the case and prosecute Mr. Trinh Van Quyet - Chairman of the Board of Directors of FLC Group Joint Stock Company, to investigate the crime of stock market manipulation.

The investigation agency has applied measures to arrest the suspect for temporary detention, and at the same time issued a search warrant for the residence and workplace of FLC Chairman Trinh Van Quyet to serve the investigation.

Initial investigation results have clarified many violations of Mr. Trinh Van Quyet related to "inflating" stock prices with the purpose of illegally profiting hundreds of billions of dong.

Defendant Trinh Van Quyet's illegal stock market manipulation was determined to have taken place from early December 2021 until the trading session on January 10, 2022 - the session in which the FLC Chairman illegally sold 74.8 million shares.

Accordingly, Mr. Quyet drew up a rather sophisticated "scenario", directing many people to participate in "inflating" the price of the shares of his own corporation to an extremely high level to "herd" many investors and then "covertly" sell the shares he bought cheaply with the purpose of making illegal profits.

Defendant Trinh Van Quyet directed many family members and some other people to manage employees of BOS Securities JSC and its subsidiaries to use about 20 securities accounts of 11 organizations to carry out "price manipulation". These individuals colluded with each other to continuously buy and sell FLC securities at high frequency to create fake supply and demand to push prices up.

Trinh Van Quyet and his assistants participated in 28/28 trading sessions, the number of buy orders accounted for 12% and the number of sell orders accounted for 7% of the total market volume.

The act of creating fake supply and demand by Trinh Van Quyet's group pushed the price of FLC shares from more than 14,000 VND/share on December 1, 2021 to continuously increase, even reaching the "ceiling" for many sessions and the highest "ceiling" increase was 24,000 VND/share. The price of FLC shares was "magically" increased by more than 64% by the group of defendant Quyet.

After the FLC stock price was inflated to an astronomical level, the group's chairman used a "basket-covering" tactic, instructing his relatives to sell 175 million shares. The total number of FLC shares sold by Mr. Quyet's group that were matched was 74.8 million, with an average price of VND22,500/share. All of these shares were sold "underground", without being announced before the transaction.

The total amount of money that defendant Trinh Van Quyet collected after illegally selling shares was nearly 1,700 billion VND, illegally profiting more than 530 billion VND. However, immediately after the illegal selling of shares, the State Securities Commission canceled the transaction of all shares sold by Mr. Quyet, and the investors who bought these shares were fortunate to have their money refunded.

The investigation agency has searched 21 locations, which are the residences and workplaces of many people involved in the stock manipulation of FLC Chairman Trinh Van Quyet and continues to clarify the accomplices and assistants of many others.