TAN HOANG MINH CHIEF APPEALS SENTENCE, VICTIMS DEMAND INTEREST ON FRAUD AMOUNT
On May 2, the Hanoi People’s Court received an appeal for a reduced sentence from Do Anh Dung, Chairman of Tan Hoang Minh Group. In addition to Dung’s appeal, the court also received appeals from several victims, requesting interest to be calculated on the amount of money seized.
Over a month ago, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Dung to 8 years in prison for “Fraudulent Appropriation of Property”; his son, Do Hoang Viet, received a 36-month prison sentence.
Dung’s subordinates at Tan Hoang Minh Group were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 18 months to 30 months, but their sentences were suspended.
Bui Thi Ngoc Lan, former Director of the Northern Branch of Nam Viet Audit Company, along with three other employees and executives of the audit company, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 18 to 24 months, but their sentences were also suspended.
In the civil case, Do Anh Dung was ordered to compensate the full amount of money seized, 8.643 billion VND, to investors.
Regarding the issue of “interest calculation” for the victims, the first-instance trial panel stated that it was not addressed in this case, and investors demanding interest would have to pursue it in a separate civil case.
Defendant Do Anh Dung (far left) and his accomplices at the first instance trial.
The case originated from Tan Hoang Minh Group’s financial difficulties, with the company having bank debts amounting to 20,000 billion VND, twice its charter capital. To raise funds to repay the debts, Do Anh Dung instructed his son to raise capital by issuing bonds through companies in the “ecosystem” such as Ngoi Sao Viet, Cung Dien Mu Dong, and Soleil.
Following their father’s instructions, Viet and his subordinates contacted two audit companies to “beautify financial reports” to meet the conditions for bond issuance.
Using this method, Ngoi Sao Viet, Soleil, and Cung Dien Mu Dong issued 9 bond packages worth a total of 10,030 billion VND. Tan Hoang Minh then signed fictitious contracts to transfer the bonds.
Dung’s group was accused of directing the organization of “empty” cash flows to create an “illusory” value for the bonds. The cash flow would flow from Tan Hoang Minh to the issuing companies and then back to Tan Hoang Minh to purchase all 90 million bonds.
Although the bond issues had terms of 2-5 years, Tan Hoang Minh subsequently divided the terms into weeks and months to buy and sell them multiple times, earning nearly 14,000 billion VND.
At the time the case was initiated in April 2022, Tan Hoang Minh had used more than 5,000 billion VND of bond proceeds to repay bondholders who were due before. The remaining 8.6 billion VND belonging to 6,630 customers was seized by Tan Hoang Minh.
When issuing the verdict, the first instance court stated that the defendants had confessed their criminal acts as described in the indictment.
The court sentenced Do Anh Dung as the mastermind, committing the crime at the highest level, as he had proposed the plan and instructed his son Do Viet to direct Tan Hoang Minh’s employees to “collude” with audit and valuation units to issue bonds in violation of regulations.
Do Hoang Viet, being related to Do Anh Dung by blood, committed the crime under his direction. During the investigation, he confessed and expressed remorse, so his sentence should be “significantly reduced.”
The remaining defendants each played a role in creating the bond issuance documents, actively assisting the Chairman of Tan Hoang Minh in selling the bonds and seizing investors’ money.
