VietNamNet Bridge – The People’s Court of Ha Noi today sentenced 11 defendants in a fraud case that occurred at the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank, Nghe An Branch, eight years ago.

The People’s Court of Ha Noi yesterday handed down sentences to 11 defendants related to a case of fraud that occurred at the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank, Nghe An Branch, eight years ago.

Trinh Khanh Hong, 50, former chairman of the Board of Trustees and General Director of Tan Hong Import-Export Company, was sentenced to life in jail for “asset misappropriation fraud” and 20 years for “swindling in order to misappropriate assets”.

Do Duc Hung, 61, former director of Agribank Hong Ha, was given 23 years in jail, and Truong Dang Dan, 43, was given 12 years in jail, both for “asset misappropriation fraud” and violating lending regulations.

Nguyen Van Manh, chief accountant of Tan Hong Company was sentenced to 11 years in jail for swindling to misappropriate assets.

The five defendants to receive custodial sentences, Do Minh Hien, former head of the planning unit of Agribank Hong Ha, Dinh Van Hai, former director of Duc Hung Company, Tran Huu Tuan, director of Giang Linh Company, Nguyen Thi My, director of Thai An Company, and Do Huu Bach, director of Duc Hung Company, were given from five to seven years in jail for fraudulent misappropriation of assets.

Two credit staff of Agribank Hong Ha, Nguyen Van Thuy and Dinh Minh Dao, were given three years probation.

According to the court indictment, in 2009, Trinh Khanh Hong set up a project with loans of US$20 million from Agribank to plant material forest. However when the loan was approved, Hong used the money for his own purposes. He also created 965 fake invoices showing that he gave the money to households to plant trees.

Hong worked with the other defendants to misappropriate more than VND281 billion (US$12.8 million) from companies and borrowed another VND200 billion ($8.8 million) from banks.

In this case, five former staff from Agribank Hong Ha, who knew that Hong was incapable of paying back the loans but didn’t want to have bad debts on their record, signed guarantee documents so that Hong could borrow more money. 

VNS