The Hanoi City Police Investigation Agency has just completed the investigation conclusion, proposing to prosecute Nguyen Van Linh (born in 1986, former Treasury officer of Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank - TPBank) for embezzlement of 246 taels of SJC gold.
According to the investigation conclusion, TPBank was listed on the stock exchange in 2018 with a charter capital of more than VND 20,016 billion. At the time of 2017 (when the defendant committed the crime), the State-owned enterprise's capital contribution at this bank was 6.09%, including Mobifone holding 0.95% (divested in 2019) and Vietnam National Reinsurance Company holding 5.14% (by 2023, it will be 2.64%).
The bank established a centralized treasury to store assets including gold, money, valuable papers, important seals, etc. As for gold, the bank divided it into 3 statuses for management.
The first is gold for safekeeping, because DOJI accepts to keep SJC gold for safekeeping, there is a fee; including keeping the original series (when returning, the original number will be received) and non-series. The second type is transaction gold (buying and selling), meaning SJC gold is stored and used for buying and selling transactions with customers. Both types are inventoried daily by the Warehouse Management Board.
The third type, gold mortgage, is when lending money to customers and using SJC gold bars as collateral. After receiving the mortgage, the gold is sealed according to bank regulations and stored in a vault. This type is periodically inventoried on June 30 and December 31 every year.
(Illustration).
Around 2017, defendant Nguyen Van Linh was the treasurer and noticed the above situation when the gold pledged in the warehouse was counted only twice a year, with prior notice. Therefore, Linh had the idea of appropriating the gold in the safe to buy, sell, and keep, then took the gold from the pledged safe to replace the shortage, bypassing the daily inventory.
From the accounting information, Linh determined that a customer named C. mortgaged 246 taels of SJC gold but only paid on paper and kept the gold in a fixed warehouse. The suspect planned to appropriate 246 taels of SJC gold in the safe and replace it with the gold that C. was mortgaging.
On July 5, 2017, after completing the gold inventory at the end of the day, Linh took 246 taels of SJC gold from the safe containing "gold for sale and safekeeping" and put it in a black plastic bag and stored it in a metal box.
The next morning, during the process of opening the warehouse to receive the first fund of the day for the branches, Linh brought the above mentioned metal box to the buffer warehouse - a space outside the vault, where entry and exit are not monitored.
The defendant also contacted Ms. Truong Thi Hong Khanh's phone number from Gia Bach Gold and Silver Company, arranged to sell the obtained gold, and transacted at BIDV bank on Tho Nhuom street.
In the late morning, taking advantage of the time when the treasury staff went to the ATM to continue the fund, Linh went into the buffer warehouse to take 246 taels of SJC gold, and walked to BIDV bank to sell it. After selling the gold, Linh earned more than 8.8 billion VND and deposited it all into her securities account.
At the end of the working day on July 6, 2017, during the inventory process with the Warehouse Management Board, Nguyen Van Linh placed a bag of gold containing 246 taels of SJC gold belonging to customer C. into the "buying, selling, and keeping" gold safe to replace the amount of gold taken. Therefore, other members of the Warehouse Management Board did not detect the missing assets.
On March 22, 2019, Mr. C. paid off the loan and received the full 246 taels of SJC gold from the bank. In order to continue to avoid detection of the embezzlement, defendant Linh cut the seal of the gold bag of Doji Company in the vault, took out 246 taels of SJC gold and put it in the bank's safe containing "gold for sale". When placing it, the defendant also told everyone that this amount of gold was sent by a "VIP customer" and that no one was allowed to touch it.
In January 2021, a customer named H. mortgaged 561 taels of gold and the bank assigned Linh to manage it. The defendant realized that using this amount of gold to replace the 246 taels of SJC gold he had appropriated would be safer than using the amount of gold from Doji Company in the warehouse, so he decided to replace it.
During the process of replacing the gold, Linh broke a lock and had to buy a replacement. When Ms. H. paid off the loan and received the 561 taels of SJC gold, she also discovered that a box of gold could not be opened with her key, but because she had received all of it, she did not complain.
Thus, to conceal his criminal acts, before each asset inspection, Linh returned 246 taels of SJC gold to the safe containing the gold he had bought and sold. During the inspection and inventory process, the defendant was the one who actively carried out the gold inventory, read the data for the members of the inventory team to record and compare the books, so for a long time, the members of the Treasury Management Board and the inspection teams did not detect the shortage.
Only when Ms. H. said she had finished paying, there was no more suitable gold in the warehouse to replace it every time she reported; Linh was unable to return it and could no longer hide it, so she went to the police to surrender.
In addition to the above acts, Nguyen Van Linh also confessed that Ms. Le Cam Tu - Chief Accountant, asked her to keep more than 70 billion VND of his personal money and put it in the bank's vault. On September 16, 2023, Linh returned 40 billion VND to Ms. Tu.
The remaining 30 billion VND of Ms. Tu and the proceeds from the sale of 246 taels of SJC gold, defendant Linh used to buy virtual currency to invest in foreign exchange (Forex); buy lottery tickets and is currently at a loss, unable to repay Ms. Tu and the bank.
Regarding the consequences of Nguyen Van Linh embezzling 246 taels of gold, the bank said that insurance companies had paid more than 468,000 USD and more than 5.3 billion VND.
The incident involved the Director of the Head Office Transaction Center; the Customer Service Director and many other employees of the bank.
Their actions were determined to be irresponsible but were not the direct cause of Linh's embezzlement of 246 taels of SJC gold. Therefore, the investigation agency believes that there is not enough basis to prosecute these people for the crime of "Lack of responsibility causing serious consequences".
In the case, Nguyen Van Linh stated that he contacted Ms. Truong Thi Hong Khanh to sell 246 taels of gold. However, Ms. Khanh did not admit it and confirmed that the employee had her phone number; Linh's messages on her phone were not answered.
On the other hand, after receiving the money from the sale of 246 taels of gold, Linh was the one who directly deposited the money into her account. This defendant also did not know the person who received the gold and gave her the money, so the police said there was not enough basis to determine that Ms. Khanh committed the crime of receiving property obtained by another person through criminal means or was an accomplice with Linh in the act of embezzlement.
Source: https://vtcnews.vn/can-bo-ngan-hang-tham-o-246-luong-vang-sjc-lay-tien-mua-xo-so-vietlott-ar902505.html
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