Banned from buying gold from banks, businesses hire proxies: police

In recent weeks at least four separate groups of people were reportedly hired to queue at Vietcombank, Agribank and BIDV in Hanoi to buy gold, the Ministry of Public Security said in report Sunday.

By following them, the police found that four of them were buying gold for a jewelry store in Thanh Xuan District.

The store does not have a license to sell gold. It bought a total of 14 gold bars from the banks by using proxies.

The store was also busted for buying bullion without invoices from an individual and not being able to furnish bills for some jewelry it sold.

Customers queue to buy gold at a Vietcombank branch in Hanoi, June 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Tuan

The police confiscated one tael of gold, 232 gold rings and 48 other metal rings.

Nguyen Dac Tai, head of the currency security task force at the Hanoi Economic Security Police, said some stores bought gold for lower prices from state-owned banks and sold them at profits even as the State Bank of Vietnam sought to bring down gold prices by directly intervening in the market.

Most of them operate without necessary permits, he said.

In early June the central bank sold bullion through four state-owned banks at 1.2% lower than market rates in a bid to narrow the gap between domestic and global prices, which rose to 23% at one point recently.

Only individuals were allowed to buy, not businesses.

Gold prices have been steady at VND76.98 million per tael of 37.5 grams for the last two weeks.