Ms. Truong My Lan manipulated and appropriated money from SCB Bank.

According to the investigation conclusion of the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Agency, during its operation, Van Thinh Phat Group has built a Van Thinh Phat ecosystem with more than 1,000 enterprises including subsidiaries and member companies at home and abroad, divided into many layers, with hundreds of individuals hired as legal representatives or relatives, officers and employees of Van Thinh Phat Group are divided into 4 main groups with close relationships with each other.

These 4 groups include: Vietnamese financial institutions group (including: SCB Bank, Tan Viet Securities Company, Viet Vinh Phu Financial Investment Joint Stock Company), in which SCB plays a particularly important role, used as a financial tool to provide capital for companies in the Van Thinh Phat ecosystem;

Group of companies operating in Vietnam (mostly operating in the fields of real estate, restaurants, hotels, etc.) are all companies with large charter capital, holding controlling shares in subsidiaries and member companies such as An Dong Investment Group Joint Stock Company, etc.);

Group of companies called "ghost companies" in Vietnam (established to use legal entities to contribute capital to invest in projects, borrow money from banks, carry out debt restructuring or sign cooperation and construction contracts...);

Overseas company network group : Ms. Truong My Lan built a network of many shell companies in territories and "tax haven" countries to serve investment and business activities abroad or use the name of "foreign investors" to invest in Vietnam, with the task of managing the capital and assets of Ms. Truong My Lan's family abroad.

The investigation agency determined that Ms. Truong My Lan directed the group of defendants at Van Thinh Phat Group to establish, receive transfers, and use thousands of legal entities to take out loans; transfer or receive money from abroad; issue bonds; take on project names; restructure share ownership between companies, and transfer shares and assets to individuals according to the purposes of Ms. Truong My Lan and her accomplices.

My Lan School.jpeg — Ms. Truong My Lan. Photo provided by the Police.

Among them, there are a large number of "ghost companies" established without any business activities but only to take out loans at SCB Bank, create fake loan plans, and legalize SCB's withdrawal of money for Ms. Truong My Lan to use.

Ms. Truong My Lan also directed a group of people at Van Thinh Phat Group to hire and ask thousands of individuals to take out loans at SCB Bank, to act as legal representatives of "ghost companies", to act as collateral, to act as shareholders, to open accounts to receive money, and to withdraw cash, to serve Ms. Truong My Lan's purposes.

With the policy of taking advantage of the Bank's operations to mobilize capital to meet the business needs of the Group and companies in the Van Thinh Phat ecosystem, Ms. Truong My Lan acquired 3 private banks by purchasing and owning the majority of shares of these banks to manipulate operations for personal purposes.

In particular, since December 2011, by having someone else own shares, Ms. Truong My Lan has held 81.43% of shares of Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (old) under the names of 32 shareholders; 98.74% of shares of Vietnam Tin Nghia Commercial Joint Stock Bank under the names of 36 shareholders and 80.46% of shares of First Commercial Joint Stock Bank under the names of 24 shareholders.

After these 3 banks were merged on January 1, 2012, under the name Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB Bank), Ms. Lan continued to ask 73 shareholders to own 85.606% of NG SCB shares, and continued to buy and use individuals to own SCB shares to increase the share ownership ratio at this bank to 91.545% on January 1, 2018.

The financial situation of SCB Bank as of June 30, 2017 was very bad. At this time, SCB Bank had negative equity, but Ms. Truong My Lan directed the subjects at SCB to cover up, report dishonestly and use tricks to bribe the inspectors, so that they would cover up and report dishonestly about the situation of SCB Bank.

Sophisticated appropriation of money from SCB Bank

The investigation agency determined that Ms. Truong My Lan and her accomplices were able to withdraw and appropriate money from SCB through borrowing tricks, with the assistance of subjects at valuation companies. These people colluded with subjects at SCB to issue valuation certificates to legalize the loan applications of Ms. Truong My Lan's group - Van Thinh Phat Group.

To withdraw money from SCB, in addition to using "ghost companies", Ms. Truong My Lan and her accomplices also used collateral that did not meet legal requirements, inflating the value many times.

In addition to the trick of draining SCB Bank with money, Ms. Truong My Lan also directed her accomplices to drain SCB Bank by exchanging and withdrawing valuable collateral assets from SCB Bank to use for the purposes of Ms. Lan and Van Thinh Phat Group.

To legalize the withdrawal of money for her own purposes, avoid detection by authorities, and have the opportunity to trace the money flow to detect violations, Ms. Truong My Lan directed her subordinates to carry out very sophisticated actions.

Specifically, Ms. Lan directed her accomplices to use the created fake loan schemes to disburse and transfer money into the accounts of "ghost" individuals and legal entities to transfer money out of the SCB Bank system or to allow individuals and legal entities to withdraw cash in order to cut off the cash flow.

Due to the above violations, the principal and interest debt at SCB has been increasing, leading to the need to account for bad debt in group 5. In order to conceal part of the bad debt, reduce credit balance and be able to continue lending and disbursing according to the "fake" records of "ghost companies", in order to continue to appropriate money from SCB, Ms. Truong My Lan and her accomplices sold bad debt to VAMC and sold it on credit to the "ghost companies" established by the Van Thinh Phat group.

Ms. Truong My Lan and her accomplices appropriated more than 304,096 billion VND.

According to the Investigation Police Agency, from January 1, 2018 to October 7, 2022, Ms. Truong My Lan directed the creation of 916 fake loan applications to withdraw money and appropriate money from SCB Bank. Up to now, these loans still owe more than VND 545,039 billion. Of which, the principal balance is more than VND 415,666 billion.

The entire amount of embezzled money was used for Ms. Lan's personal purposes. However, the Investigation Police determined that many of the remaining assets securing the loans of Truong My Lan's group were valuable, and SCB Bank is currently monitoring and managing them. Therefore, applying the principle in favor of the accused, the Investigation Police determined that Ms. Lan and her accomplices were responsible for embezzling more than VND 304,096 billion. In addition, Ms. Lan's embezzlement of assets also caused a loss of more than VND 129,372 billion.

This is the interest amount arising from the above-mentioned misappropriated principal amount. The Investigation Police Agency also clarified that from 2012 to 2022, subjects at SCB and other related subjects had lent money in violation of regulations, and up to now have not been able to recover the principal amount of more than 677,286 billion VND, and interest debt of more than 193,315 billion VND.

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