The Office of the People’s Procuracy of Ho Chi Minh City issued an indictment against Aigars Plivës (Latvian citizen), Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Sương (Director of Digital Credit Company), Trương Tuấn Tài (Director of Fincap VN Company) and 10 other defendants for the crime of usurious lending in civil transactions.
According to the indictment, on April 10, 2023, the District 10 Police received a report from Mr. LTH regarding his loan of 1 million VND from Digital Credit Company. Due to non-payment, Mr. H was requested to repay the debt with the principal and interest totaling 21 million VND.
 The police arrested Aigars Plivës for the crime of usurious lending in civil transactions. Photo: Police
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The District 10 Police investigated, verified, and discovered an operation of usurious lending through the tamo.vn and findo.vn websites. Sofi Solutions Company would operate the two websites, and Digital Credit Company and Fincap VN Company would disburse loans disguised as pawnbroking and financial advisory services.
In 2018, Aigars Plivës (an employee of Sun Finance Group headquartered in Latvia) came to Vietnam to establish and operate lending activities through the three aforementioned companies.
The tamo.vn and findo.vn websites were pre-programmed by Sun Finance Group with data on electronic contracts, customer information, loan amounts, etc., stored in a system managed by the group, and software was set up to prevent employees from downloading and copying data from computers.
To borrow money, customers only need to log in to the website and provide personal information (phone number, email), as well as monthly income, expenses, identity card images, and front-facing photos. The system will automatically process the loan without the need for direct contact with any lending company staff.
The appraisal department’s employees would verify the authenticity of the customer-provided information and approve the loan. Once approved, the loan amount would be automatically transferred to the customer’s bank account.
At this point, the system would automatically create three electronic contracts, including a Pawnbroking Loan Contract and Asset Pledge Contract with Digital Credit Company for borrowers through the tamo.vn website and Fincap Company for borrowers through the findo.vn website, as well as a service advisory contract with Sofi Solutions Company.
These three contracts were stored in the system and were not signed by any party. Verification confirmed that there was no pawnbroking or asset pledging involved.
When customers borrow money, they only need to enter the loan amount and loan term, and the system will automatically calculate the interest amount and fees to be paid.
When the loan is due, if the borrower fails to make the payment, they can extend the debt on the website for an additional 5, 10, or 15 days, up to a maximum of 30 days, with a fee for extension. The additional fees are used to generate profits for the three companies, similar to the interest on the loans.
Initially, borrowed money would be directly transferred by the company to the customer’s account. However, starting from September 2019, Digital Credit Company no longer disbursed funds directly but signed contracts with Bảo Kim Company and Mobile Online Services Company (Momo) to disburse funds through transfer from the Bảo Kim account to the borrower’s Momo account.
During the investigation, while extracting a list of borrowers from the two websites, the system was shut down, so only information from 229 borrowers could be extracted, and statements could be collected from 28 of them.
Customers can repay the loan in three ways: transferring money to the account of Digital Credit Company or Fincap Company, transferring money to the Momo wallet, or paying in cash at Viettel Post agents.
During the investigation, it was determined that the aforementioned three companies obtained profits of 4.2 trillion VND, including interest and fees. The amount of interest earned, as specified, was 50.6 billion VND, and the remaining 4,150 billion VND constituted illegitimate gains, with interest rates ranging from a minimum of 401.5% per year to a maximum of 1,379.7% per year.
In the case of Aigars Plivës, during the investigation process, it was determined that he started engaging in usurious lending from June 2020 to April 2023, earning illicit profits of 4.2 billion VND while receiving a monthly salary of 120 million VND. For the other defendants, the amount of illicit profits was determined to range from 220 million VND to 4 billion VND.
SONG MAI
