The case of "super fraudster" Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh: Court forces bank to pay money to tycoon's wife

After 2 days of trial, on May 25, the High People's Court in Hanoi decided to reduce the sentence for Ms. Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh and other defendants.

Accused of defrauding and appropriating more than VND433 billion from 3 banks and 5 individuals, “super fraudster” Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh was sentenced to life in prison by the court of first instance for fraud and appropriation of property. Ms. Thanh appealed for a reduced sentence.

The appellate court acknowledged that the defendant actively requested to handle 26% of his shares at MHD Investment JSC (equivalent to about 75 billion VND) to remedy the consequences, so it decided to reduce the sentence for the "super fraudster" to 20 years in prison.

The panel also accepted the appeals of all remaining defendants, reducing each person's sentence from 9 months to 3 years in prison.

As for defendant Nguyen Thanh Tung (Director of Jeongho Landmark Company), who was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the first instance court for fraud and appropriation of property, although he did not appeal, the panel of judges also acknowledged that this defendant voluntarily used all of his shares at MHD to remedy the consequences.

Therefore, the Court decided to reduce the defendant Tung's sentence by 2 years (to 16 years). According to the panel of judges, the sentence reduction is to give Mr. Tung "motivation to improve himself".

Regarding civil matters, the appellate court decided to partially amend the judgment. Accordingly, the 5 tycoons who gave their savings books to Ms. Ha Thanh to manage were not allowed to return the money. For the 3 tycoons who did not have a loan agreement with defendant Thanh, the court issued a judgment forcing the bank to return the money and not freeze the savings books.

The court accepted the appeal of the wife of tycoon Dang Nghia T., and ruled that: The savings books in Ms. T.'s name at NCB and PVCombank were in accordance with legal regulations, Ms. T. was not related to the defendant Ha Thanh and the bank officials who committed violations.

According to the appellate court, after depositing the money and receiving the savings book, Ms. T. gave the book to her husband to keep. She did not know how her husband used and managed it, nor did she know that her husband gave the savings book to the "super swindler". Ms. T. also did not have an agreement with defendant Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh or any company to use her savings book to borrow money, nor did she give the savings book to Ms. Thanh.

Every month, the banks paid interest to Ms. T. and when the fraud occurred, the banks committed in writing to return the money to Ms. T. At the appeal hearing, Mr. Dang Nghia T. confirmed that Ms. T. did not know that her husband gave the savings book to the "super scammer".

Therefore, the appellate court ordered NCB Bank and PVCombank to stop the blockade and return 4 savings books to Ms. T. The total amount of money in these books is worth 70 billion VND.

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According to the first instance verdict, defendant Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh (born 1984, in Hanoi) committed 27 fraud cases, appropriating a total of more than 433 billion VND.
Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh colluded with 17 former officials and employees of NCB, VAB and PVCombank to create savings books jointly owned by herself and the “tycoons”, promising to pay high interest. Afterwards, Ms. Thanh forged the signatures of the co-owners to mortgage the savings books and get the banks to disburse the money.
Former bank officials helped “super fraudster” Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh legalize documents and draft illegal deposit contracts. They skipped many verification steps such as not meeting the collateral owner in person, preparing a credit application even though the documents were fake and had not been appraised..., thereby helping Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh borrow money using other people's assets.
To commit the crime, Ms. Thanh borrowed money from Mr. Dang Nghia T. by asking him to deposit money into NCB through 4 savings books. Thanh kept these books. The defendant used the savings books and forged the signatures of Mr. T. and his wife in the documents to borrow 47.5 billion VND from NCB and then appropriated it.
Similarly, defendant Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh borrowed 52 billion VND from Mr. Dang Nghia T. by asking him to deposit savings at PVcomBank. Thanh used these savings books to borrow nearly 50 billion VND.
At Viet A Bank, Ms. Thanh also asked Mr. T. and many others to deposit money. Bank staff helped the defendant create illegal deposit contracts and gave them to these people as collateral, then created a savings book and gave it to defendant Thanh.