6 bankers face trial in $11 mln theft from customers in Vietnam

The six, working at the HCMC branch of the bank, have been charged with "negligence causing severe damage to state, organization or business’ property."

Ho Ngoc Thuy, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram, Tran Nguyen Xuan Lan, Nguyen Thi Thi, Cao Lan Phuong and Luong Quoc Anh face the prospect of spending up to 10 years in jail.

Two Eximbank employees Ho Thi Thuy and Nguyen Thi Thi are covered under umbrellas as they are escorted by police out of their office in Ho Chi Minh City in March 2018. Photo by VnExpress

According to the indictment, Chu Thi Binh, a seafood company owner, had been making large deposits at the branch since 2007. This gave her VIP status, and the branch's then deputy director Le Nguyen Hung was assigned to personally handle her transactions.

Taking advantage of her trust and using forged documents, in 2014 Hung allegedly started to withdraw the money from her 11 saving accounts and deposit it into an account he had opened in the name of his wife's aunt.

Hung also abused his employees' trust to forge withdrawal and deposit slips to steal VND19 billion from two other customers’ accounts to buy an equivalent sum in dollars to flee abroad, according to the indictment.

Hung's frauds were only discovered after he quit the bank in 2017 and Binh discovered that a huge sum had gone missing from her accounts.

But by then he had fled, and an international arrest warrant has since been issued for him.

In the indictment, investigators have charged the six with failing to comply with banking regulations, enabling Hung to steal the money.

Hung faces charges of "appropriating property through swindling," which carries the death penalty. The charge will be pressed when he is apprehended.

Eximbank offered to pay Binh VND14.8 billion in March. She has turned down the offer and demanded full reimbursement, but the bank is reluctant to do so.

“Once a court decides Eximbank is responsible for returning the money, we will do it immediately,” the bank's CEO, Le Van Quyet, said.

“We really want to resolve this quickly and save us from bad publicity. But without a trial, it will be hard for us to explain to our shareholders.”