Truong My Lan's method of "laundering" more than 445,000 billion VND

On the afternoon of September 19, the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City continued the second-instance trial of the case at Van Thinh Phat Group Corporation and Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB) with the announcement of the indictment.

According to the representative of the People's Procuracy of Ho Chi Minh City, defendant Truong My Lan, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Van Thinh Phat Group, is the person who controls, operates, directs, and decides on all activities of the group and its legal entities; is the person who sets out the policy and directs the issuance of corporate bonds.

The indictment shows that in August 2018, SCB Bank was under inspection and examination; the application for credit from SCB Bank of companies belonging to Van Thinh Phat Group encountered difficulties, along with the prolonged bad debt situation, so Truong My Lan chaired a meeting with other defendants who were key personnel of the group, SCB Bank and TVSI Securities Company, choosing companies belonging to the group to issue, consult, and illegally offer individual corporate bonds, mobilizing money from people to repay bank debts, invest in projects and other personal purposes.

Implementing Truong My Lan's policy, from 2018 to 2020, key personnel at SCB Bank, Van Thinh Phat Group and TVSI Securities Company met, selected and used 4 companies under Van Thinh Phat Group including: An Dong Company, Quang Thuan Company, Sunny World Company and Setra Company to issue 25 "fake" bonds, without collateral with a total volume of 308,691,388 bonds.

At the same time, run a fake cash flow to legalize primary investors for the issued bonds, then sell bonds to thousands of investors through securities companies, collect money and use it for many different purposes, not in accordance with the purpose of issuing bonds.

As of October 7, 2022, Truong My Lan and her accomplices had appropriated more than VND 30,000 billion from 35,824 victims.

In addition to the above amount, Truong My Lan and her accomplices appropriated more than VND445,000 billion through embezzlement of more than VND415,000 billion from SCB. To legalize the above source of money, Truong My Lan directed her subordinates to come up with a plan to withdraw and transfer cash out of the SCB system. Truong My Lan directed her subordinates to make a list of legal entities and individuals receiving and withdrawing money, mainly from "ghost" companies.

Cash withdrawals were mainly made at SCB Bank Saigon Branch according to the following process: Truong My Lan directed through Nguyen Phuong Hong (deceased), then Nguyen Phuong Hong coordinated with defendants Truong Khanh Hoang and Tran Thi My Dung to request defendant Nguyen Phuong Anh to make a list of legal entities and individuals receiving and withdrawing money.

At the same time, direct Thai Thi Thanh Thao, Director of Wholesale Customer Service Department, SCB Bank Saigon Branch to coordinate with Nguyen Phuong Anh to implement.

Nguyen Phuong Anh directed the accounting staff assigned to manage the "ghost" company in the group to prepare documents (UNC, withdrawal papers, etc.) and transfer to defendant Thai Thi Thanh Thao information about the legal entity receiving the money and the individual withdrawing the money to prepare documents to complete the cash withdrawal procedure, then make an appointment for the hired individuals to come to SCB Bank to sign the withdrawal documents.

After completing the withdrawal procedures, Thai Thi Thanh Thao informed the defendant Tran Thi Thuy Ai, Cash Controller of SCB Bank Saigon Branch, to withdraw cash from the fund.

After being withdrawn from the SCB fund, the money was handed over to Bui Van Dung (Truong My Lan's driver) to transport to the Sherwood building at 127 Pasteur (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City) and delivered to Tran Thi Hoang Uyen (Truong My Lan's assistant). Uyen continued to hand it over to individuals as directed by Truong My Lan.

Bui Van Dung also transported large amounts of cash to the headquarters of Van Thinh Phat Group at 193-203 Tran Hung Dao (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City) or directly transferred money to individuals under Lan's direction. From February 2019 to September 2022, Dung, under the direction of Truong My Lan, received and transported more than 108,000 billion VND and more than 14.7 million USD.

After appropriating money from SCB Bank, depending on the purpose of use, Truong My Lan directed other defendants to use the hired legal entity and a company under Van Thinh Phat Group to go to the bank to sign fake deposit/withdrawal papers, and execute payment orders to run the cash flow according to the proposed plan.

These cash flows are mostly for Truong My Lan to pay other loans at SCB, implement projects, pay for many individuals, pay debts; pay principal and interest on bonds...

Regarding the act of illegally transporting currency across the border, according to Truong My Lan's testimony, when needing to transfer money abroad to pay debts or receive loans from abroad to transfer to Vietnam, Lan assigned Trinh Quang Cong to coordinate with Nguyen Phuong Anh, Chiu Bing Keung Kenneth (lawyer, assigned by Lan to manage foreign companies) to establish "fake" contracts to buy and sell shares, capital contributions, consulting, and loans between companies in Vietnam and companies and organizations abroad (all of which are ghost companies under the management and operation of individuals belonging to Van Thinh Phat Group). Through these "fake" contracts, loans were transferred from abroad to Vietnam and debt repayment money was transferred from Vietnam to abroad through the SCB Banking system.

Under the direction of Truong My Lan, subjects of Van Thinh Phat Group coordinated with SCB Bank employees to transfer and receive money internationally.

Most of the overseas money transfer applications are not qualified or the transactions to receive money from abroad to Vietnam still lack information about the money transfer and are automatically locked by the system, but the authorized subjects at SCB Bank such as Vo Tan Hoang Van, Chen Yi Chung, Truong Khanh Hoang, Bui Anh Dung still approve the money transfer on the system to complete the international money transfer.

The investigation agency determined that the defendants withdrew cash and transferred more than 15,000 billion VND to individuals, spent nearly 1,900 billion VND on projects, paid more than 48,000 billion VND on debts, paid more than 183,000 billion VND on loans at SCB, and transferred more than 32,000 billion VND abroad...