How Did the Former CEO of SJC Bypass the State Bank’s Supervision to Introduce External Gold Materials for Production?

Purchasing External Raw Materials

As reported by Tien Phong, the Supreme People’s Procuracy has issued an indictment charging several individuals, including Le Thuy Hang, the former Director of SJC, a gold and jewelry company, and several of its executives and employees, with “Embezzlement of Assets” and “Abuse of Power.”

The indictment details how Hang and her accomplices allegedly caused nearly a hundred billion dong in losses to the state, with Hang personally benefiting by over 73.5 billion dong. One of the accusations involves directing subordinates to collect raw materials from gold shops to produce gold bars illegally.

According to the Procuracy, SJC was only authorized to produce and rework deformed SJC gold bars with the approval of the State Bank. To ensure compliance, the State Bank established a monitoring team to oversee the entire gold bar production process at the Tan Thuan Gold Workshop.

The gold bar production process consisted of 12 steps, divided into four groups: the Melting Group, responsible for receiving raw materials from the warehouse, melting, casting, and refining; the Cutting and Trimming Group, which checked the gold content, cut and trimmed the bars, and performed drying and polishing; the Molding Group; and the Serial Number Stamping Group.

However, in October 2021, taking advantage of lapses in supervision, Tran Tan Phat colluded with Le Thuy Hang to allow the purchase of external gold raw materials for illegal production of SJC gold bars. They achieved this by sneaking externally purchased gold into approved batches for reworking deformed SJC gold bars, then selling the newly produced bars on the market and pocketing the profits.

The group assigned roles, with the SJC Director providing the external gold raw materials to Phat, who coordinated with Mai Quoc Uy Vien, the Workshop Director, and other team leaders to carry out the illegal production.

The external gold raw materials were sourced from gold shops like Lam Huu Thien’s Kim Sang Gold Shop in Phu Nhuan, Ho Chi Minh City, which sold 2,185 taels to Hang for over VND 128 billion, and Tran Cong’s Cong Yen Gold Shop in Ben Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City, which sold 88 taels to Hang for VND 6.1 billion.

These raw materials were then handed over to Phat for illegal production of SJC gold bars at the Tan Thuan Workshop during authorized reworking sessions for the State Bank.

Illegally Producing Over 6,000 Gold Bars and 46,000 Gold Rings

Taking advantage of the absence of the monitoring team before the start of a production session, Phat provided the externally purchased gold to Doan Le Thanh, leader of the Melting Group. Thanh then melted and cast the gold into bars, hiding them in an acid tank. When the monitoring team arrived to supervise the melting process for the State Bank’s batch, Thanh waited until the casting, refining, and refining stages, then reported a failure, claiming that the gold did not meet standards and needed to be remelted. During this unsupervised process, he substituted the externally sourced gold bars he had previously melted and cast.

At the cutting and trimming stage, the team members checked the gold content, performed cutting and trimming, and dried and polished the bars to meet the standards and match the batch quantity for the day. The bars were then passed to the Molding Group, and finally to the Serial Number Stamping Group, where the illegally produced bars were separated and secretly stamped with serial numbers using a backup machine, then hidden in the workshop.

At the end of each production session, after the monitoring team left, the hidden illegally produced gold bars were retrieved and handed over to Phat, who then gave them to Hang. Hang sold these bars to gold shops in Ho Chi Minh City and through an accomplice, Nguyen Thi Hue, the director of SJC’s Hai Phong branch.

From August 2022 to February 2024, Hang provided gold raw materials to Phat and his associates on 56 occasions, resulting in the illegal production of 6,255 SJC gold bars, causing losses of over 74.8 billion dong. After selling these bars, Hang profited by over 64 billion dong, while Phat earned more than 6 billion dong.

In addition to illegal gold bar production, Hang and her accomplices also engaged in unauthorized production of SJC gold rings for Hue. While SJC was only permitted to produce gold rings according to regulations, Hang exploited loopholes, and from August 15, 2023, to September 6, 2024, she instructed Hue to purchase external raw materials for Tran Tan Phat’s group to produce 46,285 gold rings. Hue sold a portion of these rings, earning over 91 billion dong. After deducting expenses, she paid nearly 1 billion dong to Phat and split the remaining profit of over 13.2 billion dong with Hang.