Muong Thanh Group Chairman Le Thanh Than will appear in court on August 10.

Mr. Le Thanh Than was prosecuted by the Hanoi People's Procuracy for the crime of Customer Fraud, according to Clause 2, Article 198 of the Penal Code. He was prosecuted and banned from leaving his place of residence 4 years ago, on July 5, 2019.

Also appearing in court on August 10 with Mr. Than were six people prosecuted for the crime of Lack of responsibility causing serious consequences, according to Clause 2, Article 285 of the 1999 Penal Code, including: Mr. Nguyen Duy Uyen (former chairman of Kien Hung Ward People's Committee, Ha Dong), Vuong Dang Quan (former deputy chief of the Construction Inspectorate of Ha Dong District), Mai Quang Bai (officer of the Construction Order Management Team of Ha Dong District) and Bui Van Bang, Do Van Hung, Nguyen Van Nam.

Mr. Le Thanh Than

The indictment determined that Mr. Than held 90% of the shares and was the Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Bemes Company. In 2000, Bemes signed a land lease contract with the former Ha Tay Department of Land Administration to build a construction materials factory. After changing the policy, in 2008, Bemes was approved by the Ha Tay People's Committee for the detailed construction plan 1/500 of the CT6 Kien Hung project in Kien Hung ward, Ha Dong district.

According to the plan, on the 17,000 m2 under management, Mr. Than's company is allowed to build a 31-storey building with two basements on a land area of ​​over 5,500 m2. Floors 2-4 are a commercial center, floors 5-31 are divided into two high-end apartment towers and a hotel.

On a low-rise block of over 1,000 square meters, Bemes built 15 three-story houses. In mid-2010, Bemes Company repeatedly requested to adjust some of the planning but was not approved by the authorities.

The People's Procuracy accused Mr. Than of still directing construction that violated planning and built on the red line, causing "serious violations of construction planning".

For the high-rise building, he increased the basement area from 5,762 to 6,817 m2, tower A increased from 1,108 to 2,428 m2, tower B from 1,099 to 1,928 m2 and reduced one basement, added one penthouse floor; abandoned the construction of a 718 m2 kindergarten.

Tower B changed from hotel function to apartment; built 495 hotel rooms into 1,582 apartments. He directed to build an additional CT6C building not included in the approval with 438 apartments.

The low-rise block was approved to have an area of ​​over 1,600 m2 to build 15 three-story apartments. However, Mr. Than directed the construction of over 2,800 m2 with 38 high-rise apartments. Furthermore, the entire area planned for the kindergarten was converted into low-rise apartments.

Since March 2011, Mr. Than has been accused of directing his subordinates to advertise, "providing false information about the legality of the project to sell illegally built apartments". This was intended to make customers trust and sign apartment purchase contracts with Bemes, paying money according to construction progress.

On the apartment sale contract, Mr. Than, as the General Director, signed directly with the customer. He committed that the project documents had been approved, the design complied with construction regulations and would support the buyer in the procedures for issuing the red book.

According to the indictment, the CT6 Kien Hung project has 1,620 apartments. After selling the houses to customers, Bemes Company cooperated and was granted red books by the Hanoi Department of Natural Resources and Environment for 916 apartments and 18 low-rise houses. The remaining 483 apartments of the CT6C tower and 82 other apartments have not been granted red books.

The police worked with 488/520 customers who bought houses at Mr. Than's project and determined that the amount of money they had to spend to buy 488 apartments but were not granted red books was more than 534 billion VND. Subtracting 53 billion VND that had been paid in taxes, the People's Procuracy determined that Mr. Than illegally earned more than 481 billion VND; the damage caused to 488 customers who bought apartments without red books was 53 billion VND.

Mr. Than requested to review the amount of illegal profits, because the investment cost to build the CT6C project was 632 billion VND. But the People's Procuracy said that he directed the construction of this building against the planning, so there was no basis to deduct the project's construction cost.

At the investigation agency, 488 customers who bought houses without being granted red books stated that when they signed the sales contract, they did not know that the apartment was built against planning regulations. They bought the houses "because they trusted Mr. Than". In addition to the victims who requested support to be granted red books, 6 people asked the investor to return the money for buying the houses, totaling 7 billion VND.

Building CT6C is not built in the planning.

According to the People's Procuracy, Mr. Than stated that due to his haste to seize the business opportunity, he had not completed the administrative procedures to submit to the competent authority for planning adjustment. He submitted a request to remedy the consequences of the case according to three options. One is to accept the administrative penalty according to regulations. Two is to negotiate with the home buyers at CT6C to move to the Thanh Ha - Cienco5 urban area project (also owned by Mr. Than). Three is to negotiate with the residents of CT6C to buy back the apartment or return the money to buy the house, then demolish it himself.

During the investigation, Mr. Than chose to negotiate with the customer to return the money or buy back the house and then demolish the illegal part himself. However, up to now, Bemes Company has not reached an agreement with the customer, so Mr. Than has asked the bank to guarantee 530 billion VND to remedy the consequences.

Regarding civil matters, the People's Procuracy proposed that Mr. Than must return 7 billion VND to 6 households and receive back the apartments at CT6C that had been sold to customers. Regarding the victims requesting the issuance of red books, the People's Procuracy proposed to separate them to resolve them according to civil matters when requested.

The People's Procuracy also said that the group of former Kien Hung ward officials and Ha Dong district construction inspectors were also irresponsible in allowing the violations to occur. During the entire process of CT6 Kien Hung project being built in violation of planning, the group of ward officials and district inspectors did not inspect or check to prevent it.

Verifying with the People's Committee of Kien Hung ward and the construction inspectorate of Ha Dong district, the police did not see any documents, inspection records or proposed handling forms for the project.

According to VnExpress