Ms. Truong My Lan's trick of using money to control key leaders of SCB

Among the 45 leaders and officials of SCB Bank recently prosecuted by the Supreme People's Procuracy, there are 3 former Chairmen of the Board of Directors (BOD), 4 General Directors, and 10 Deputy General Directors. The key leadership positions at SCB are all people with qualifications in the fields of finance and banking, selected by Ms. Truong My Lan, Chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group (with the highest power at SCB because she controls more than 91% of shares).

According to the authorities, Ms. Lan paid them 200-500 million VND per month and gave them bonuses of money and SCB shares to "win them over". Her right-hand men such as former Chairwoman of the Board of Directors Nguyen Thi Thu Suong, Dinh Van Thanh, Bui Anh Dung and former General Director and Deputy General Director Vo Tan Hoang Van, Truong Khanh Hoang, Tran Thi My Dung helped Ms. Lan embezzle more than 1,066,600 billion VND from SCB in 10 years.

Ms. Lan and the above SCB officials have just been prosecuted by the Procuracy for bribery, violating regulations on banking operations, embezzlement of property, and lack of responsibility causing serious consequences.

Defendant Bui Anh Dung has worked at SCB since the beginning, holding many positions such as Director of Ben Thanh Branch, Deputy General Director of SCB, member of the Board of Directors. In 2019, Dung was introduced by Dinh Van Thanh (who has held the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of SCB since its establishment) to succeed her. Because Thanh introduced him as a "gentle, non-disruptive" person, Ms. Lan agreed to let Dung become Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2020.

Authorities allege that when he started his new position, Dung knew that the loans of Ms. Lan's group would not need to be assessed by customers or collateral, would not be concerned with the loan plan, and would be monitored separately on the system. This ignored the general lending regulations, which was against the law, but Dung still actively assisted.

During his service at SCB, in addition to salary and holiday bonuses, Dung was given 500,000 SCB shares (about 5 billion VND) by Ms. Lan.

Defendant Truong Khanh Hoang, acting General Director of SCB, was allowed to attend many meetings of SCB's headquarters leadership upon summons from Ms. Lan. At these meetings, Hoang and SCB leaders would sit and listen to Ms. Lan's instructions on lending, the amount of money to be disbursed, the time of disbursement, what assets to use as collateral, and to whom the money would be disbursed. On several occasions, Hoang also received orders from Ms. Lan's relatives with the same content in the meetings.

Receiving orders from "Madam Lan", Hoang assigned specialized departments such as the re-appraisal and credit approval departments to carry out disbursement procedures. As for the loans of Mrs. Lan's group, there will be no loan inspection department. When the loan is due, SCB leaders will discuss together to find a solution to pay the principal, interest or make full payment.

The prosecution agency alleges that from September 2019 to December 2021, Hoang signed 253 re-evaluation reports, 349 minutes of business council meetings, and 39 reports agreeing to 386 loans worth more than VND220,000 billion. Hoang knew that the loans of Ms. Lan and Van Thinh Phat were all illegal, but because he was paid a very high salary, from VND130 to VND500 million a month, he actively helped Ms. Lan withdraw money from SCB.

On holidays and Tet, Hoang was rewarded many times by Mrs. Lan, totaling 5 billion VND. In addition, Hoang also received from Mrs. Lan 300,000 SCB shares (about 3 billion VND) in 2021 and 10 million shares (about 100 billion VND) in 2022. Hoang put all the shares in the name of his wife and his parents-in-law.

Similarly, Tran Thi My Dung, in her position as Deputy General Director, regularly directed her subordinates to legalize fake documents to disburse money to Ms. Lan for personal use. Dung knew that Ms. Lan's loans were all under the name of "ghost" companies and withdrew the money first, completed the documents later, and did not evaluate the customers or assets, but still actively helped Ms. Lan. In 2021, Ms. Lan gave Dung 300,000 SCB shares (about 3 billion VND).

In this case, 5 people were prosecuted but have fled: Dinh Van Thanh; Nguyen Thi Thu Suong; Chiem Minh Dung, former Deputy General Director of SCB; Tram Thich Ton, member of the Board of Directors of SCB; Nguyen Lam Anh Vu, former Deputy Director of SCB Ben Thanh branch. These are all important positions created by Ms. Lan.

The Supreme People's Procuracy is calling on these defendants to come to the nearest police station or Procuracy to surrender, enjoy leniency and exercise their right to self-defense as prescribed. If they continue to flee, the Procuracy will consider them as having waived their right to self-defense and they will be prosecuted and tried in absentia.

Valuation company helps SCB complete fake documents

To legalize the loan documents, Ms. Lan directed her subordinates to contact valuation companies to request the issuance of valuation certificates according to a predetermined date. All information about the assets and the prices that need to be appraised were also provided by Ms. Lan's group.

The valuation company knew that the purpose of issuing the certificate was to borrow money from the bank. However, the appraisers did not follow the correct procedure, did not appraise the actual price but only issued the certificate as requested to receive appraisal fees.

Since mid-2020, defendant Ho Binh Minh, Deputy Director of MHD Valuation Company, has agreed with the SCB Re-Appraisal Department on asset valuation at the request of the bank. The two parties agreed to inflate the asset value of some projects to issue appraisal certificates. This helped SCB legalize the mortgage disbursement documents.

In addition, Minh also introduced New Vision Company to issue certificates to SCB to enjoy 10-15% of the pre-tax contract value. In fact, all the valuation certificates were prepared by Minh in an inflated manner and then sent back to New Vision for printing and issuance.

New Vision Appraisal Company has been operating since March 2022, but at Minh's request, this company signed and issued certificates and valuation reports to postpone the time to 2020 and 2021 to help SCB legalize the documents. Minh then paid New Vision 100-200 million VND.

The Procuracy determined that 7 appraisers from appraisal companies colluded with SCB employees to legalize loan documents, causing losses of 127,000 billion VND to the bank and were all prosecuted for violating regulations on banking operations.