The Hanoi People’s Court on April 16 opened the trail of Nguyen DucKien, former vice chairman of the founding council of the AsiaCommercial Bank (ACB), and his accomplices with charges of fraud.
Kien,who was born in 1964 and resides in Quang An ward, Tay Ho district,Hanoi, is charged with four offenses – swindling for appropriation ofassets, intentional violations of the State’s economic managementregulations causing serious consequences, tax evasion and illegaltrading.
Tran Ngoc Thanh and Nguyen Thi Hai Yen, Director andChief Accountant of the Hanoi ACB Investment JSC, are charged withswindling to appropriate assets.
Six other defendants areformer ACB Chairman Tran Xuan Gia, former Vice Chairpersons Le Vu Ky andTrinh Kim Quang, ACB former General Director Ly Xuan Hai, ACB formerChairman Pham Trung Cang, and the bank’s former board member Huynh QuangTuan. They are charged with acting against the State’s economicmanagement regulations, which caused serious consequences.
Accordingto indictments, from 1993, Kien owned nearly 3.8 percent of ACB’sshares. He served as ACB Vice Chairman during 1994-2008 and was Chairmanof the bank’s investment council for nine years from 2003.
He isaccused of using six of his own companies between May 2007 and August2012 to conduct illegal financial and gold trading valued at more than21 trillion VND (1 billion USD) without the proper licenses.
Thebusinesses involved are Thien Nam Production and Import-Export JSC,B&B Trade and Investment JSC, Asia Financial Group JSC, AsiaCommercial Bank (ACB) Hanoi Investment JSC, Asia Hanoi InvestmentFinancial JSC, and Asia Investment JSC.
In addition, Kienallegedly swindled to appropriate assets in a mortgage of 20 millionshares of the Hoa Phat Steel JSC worth 264 billion VND (12.4 millionUSD) at the bank in May 2012. The prosecution argues that he instructedThanh and Yen to make a fake document from a management board meeting todefraud the mortgage.
In another charge, Kien and hisaccomplices - Gia, Ky, Cang, Quang, Hai, and Tuan – are accused on March22, 2010 of issuing a decision mandating individuals to deposit cashand foreign currencies at credit organisations.
Between June andSeptember 9, 2011, Hai empowered the chief accountant to deposit 720billion VND (33.8 million USD) at Vietinbank’s Nha Be and Ho Chi MinhCity branches. However, the money was embezzled by Huynh Thi Huyen Nhu,former Deputy Chief of the Risk Management Department of the VietnamJoint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank). She wassentenced to life behind bars at a trial in Ho Chi Minh City in Januaryfor swindling to appropriate assets and counterfeiting seals andmaterials of agencies and organisations.
Moreover, Kien and theformer ACB officials also allegedly issued policies to buy stocks andinvest in ACB shares, causing losses worth nearly 690 billion VND (32.4million USD).-VNA