Embezzlement due to debt and personal spending
On June 4th, the People’s Court of Hanoi opened a first-instance trial against Vu Thi Thu Nhung (born 1977, former Deputy Director of Vietnam Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch) for “fraudulent appropriation of property” and “forgery of documents of organizations and individuals.”
However, the trial had to be adjourned due to the absence of some victims and related individuals, and a new date has not been set.
Accused, Vu Thi Thu Nhung
According to the indictment of the Hanoi People’s Procuracy, the case originated on June 12, 2022, when the Criminal Police Department of Cau Giay District received a denunciation from Mrs. Nguyen Thi H. (born in 1979, living in Hoang Mai district) accusing Nhung of appropriating more than 23 billion VND by forging “Flexible Capital Term Deposit Certificates at Eximbank.”
During the investigation, the authorities received additional complaints from individuals accusing Nhung of fraud with similar methods.
The prosecution stated that in 2013, Nhung was appointed Deputy Director of Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch. Her task was to mobilize capital from individual customers.
Starting in 2014, due to debt and personal spending needs, Nhung deceived people she knew by claiming that Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch, where she worked, offered exclusive deposit programs for individual customers with internal bank relationships. These programs offered attractive interest rates and customer care gifts.
Specifically, the programs she offered included: Flexible Capital Term Deposit Certificates for Priority Customers at Eximbank with an interest rate of 7.5%/year plus monthly customer care gifts; Cash Holding Term Deposit Certificates; Inter-financial Term Deposit Certificates; and Bank Bonds with terms ranging from 12-32%/year.
The prosecution charged that these programs were managed separately on the internal account system of Eximbank’s leaders and were not widely issued. When customers transferred money into their accounts, Nhung was responsible for transferring the funds into Eximbank Ba Dinh Branch’s internal accounts and providing them with fake receipts.
To receive money from customers, Nhung opened multiple accounts at Viettinbank, VIB, Eximbank, and BIDV in her name and provided the account information to the customers.
According to the prosecution, after the customers transferred money into Nhung’s accounts, she used a printer to forge confirmation receipts with the Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch stamp and returned them to the customers.
Approximately 100 victims lost more than VND 2,700 billion
In addition to these programs, Nhung also appropriated large sums of money from customers by falsely claiming that Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch was organizing an auction of bad debts. To facilitate this, she established the Vietnam Asset Management and Investment Consulting Company, where she served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, and appointed Nguyen Thi Dieu Linh (born in 1980, living in Thanh Xuan district) as General Director.
Nhung introduced this company as the “backyard” of Eximbank’s internal leaders and claimed that it collaborated with Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch to organize auctions for the settlement of bad debts. She promised customers who deposited money into the company’s accounts at Vietinbank and PVCombank that they would receive a high profit share, with short-term deposits ranging from 5 to 20 days, depending on the type of asset and customer.
At the end of the term, customers would receive their principal amount back along with a profit share ranging from 10-14% of the deposited amount.
The “auction items” consisted of land plots and land-use right certificates obtained from individuals with credit relationships with the bank. Nhung stored these images on her phone to easily introduce them to potential customers.
Due to their trust in Nhung’s information, customers deposited their savings and signed up for the auction of bad debt settlement at Eximbank. However, after receiving the money, Nhung did not fulfill her commitments but used most of the funds to repay principal and interest or provide customer care gifts and profit shares to those who deposited money.
In reality, the prosecution determined that Nhung used the money from later depositors to repay earlier ones, and the remaining amount was appropriated for her personal use.
Another tactic mentioned in the indictment was Nhung’s act of forging a large number of documents from Eximbank – Ba Dinh Branch, such as Flexible Capital Term Deposit Certificates for Priority Customers, Term Deposit Certificates for Internal Leaders at Eximbank, Term Deposit Certificates, Contracts for Term Deposit Escrow in the Purchase and Sale of Bad Debt Auctions at Eximbank, and Guarantee Letters from Eximbank. She provided these fake documents to the victims to gain their trust and continue receiving their deposits for savings or investment in bad debt auctions, only to appropriate the funds for herself.
In total, the prosecution charged that from 2014 to May 2022, Nhung had appropriated more than VND 2,705 billion from approximately 100 victims.
So far, the authorities have identified 46 victims in this case, with complete information and a total amount of over VND 788 billion transferred to Nhung. She has used a large portion of this money to repay principal and interest to the victims, amounting to more than VND 477 billion. Currently, the amount she still owes the victims is over VND 311 billion.
