Former FLC chairman Trinh Van Quyet denies fraud accusation

The Ministry of Public Security recently recommended that Trinh Van Quyet, his sisters Trinh Thi Minh Hue and Trinh Thi Thuy Nga and five others people should to be charged with stock manipulation and fraudulent appropriation of assets.

Thirteen associates could face the former charge, and 22 others, the latter.

Seven officials are likely to be charged with abusing their authority, publishing false information or concealing information about securities activities.

Of the 50 people who could be charged, 11 are relatives of Quyet, and three are his private driver or friends from school.

Police investigators found that in August 2012 Quyet ordered his subordinates to buy an entertainment company for VND1.5 billion but kept it inoperative.

He changed its name several times before settling on Faros Construction.

Two years later he, his sisters and others started to make fake invoices to claim investors had contributed capital to the company.

The first chairman of Faros Construction, Doan Van Phuong, had gotten its directors to approve an increase in charter capital.

Phuong left for the U.K. and has not returned to make a statement.

Police confiscate computers at FLC's headquarters in Hanoi on March 29, 2022. Photo by Xuan Hoa

Another person involved in the affair is Trinh Van Dai, Quyet’s cousin. He was persuaded to become the chairman of Faros in 2014 though Hue was the real manager of the company and had the final say in everything.

Dai approved many documents that Hue created to falsely inflate Faros’ capital.

He held over 46 million shares of the company on behalf of Quyet but returned all of them to Quyet before the company listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange.

The police said Dai’s actions helped the fake capital hike.

Dai admitted to his actions but said he did not commit any fraud and gained nothing from the crime except for the VND80 million monthly salary he received.

Do Nhu Tuan, deputy CEO of FLC, was the CEO of Faros. He also approved many of the fake documents created to show a capital hike and conceal the fake transactions in the books.

Tuan owned 50,000 shares of Faros before it was listed but claimed he owned it on others’ behalf.

He also denied committing fraud and said he benefited only to the extent of the VND115-120 million salary he got.

Twenty other people who are being investigated also denied committing fraud. They only admitted to helping Quyet and his sister balloon the capital of Faros.

The police said Quyet knew he broke the law by faking Faros’ capital increase and selling its shares to investors.

He had at first admitted to directing his sisters to manipulate stock prices but when accused of fraud he changed his statement, blaming them for the crime and denying any involvement.

Of those accused of fraud, only former FLC deputy chairwoman Huong Tran Kieu Dung and Faros deputy CEO Nguyen Thien Phu have not denied the charges.

Dung admitted Quyet had spoken to her about the fraud and she had signed papers to help him do it.

The police also said that between 2016 and 2022, 187 people were involved in the fraud by signing papers to fake the cash payments.

They are all suspected to be guilty of fraud or covering up crimes, but have claimed they did not know what actually transpired and were only asked to perform certain tasks.

But since they did not contribute any capital to the company, the police have decided to not press charges against them.