Portrait of F88 owner Phung Anh Tuan

Phung Anh Tuan (nickname Tuan Pat) was born in 1984 in Phu Tho province, is considered a "heavyweight" hacker in the national technology community, and used to be the director of a network security company. Phung Anh Tuan studied at Hung Vuong High School for the Gifted and is also an excellent student at Hanoi University of Business and Technology.

According to information from the National Business Registration Portal, Mr. Tuan is currently the legal representative of F88 Trading Joint Stock Company (established in 2016). Mr. Tuan is also the representative of F88 Investment Joint Stock Company, established in 2015, which is the parent company of F88 Trading Joint Stock Company.

Portrait of F88 owner Phung Anh Tuan - 1 — Mr. Phung Anh Tuan, Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of F88.

After leaving university, Tuan worked as an IT employee for several large corporations such as VASC, Viettel , and Hipt. After that, Tuan quit his job and started a cybersecurity company in 2003, the first start-up in the security industry in Vietnam. By 2018, the company was listed among the “Top B2B Companies in Asia”. This helped Phung Anh Tuan consolidate his position in the IT industry.

Talking about the opportunity to switch to the pawn industry, Tuan once said that in the early stages of starting his business, because he did not have enough money to pay his employees, he often pawned his belongings. Thanks to that, Tuan realized the potential of this field and started working.

"In the early days, there were many difficulties. Sometimes, we had to pawn to pursue our passion. Then we realized that the pawn market had a lot of potential and there were many opportunities to develop the company professionally and differently if we knew how to combine our technological advantages into business activities. But it was not until 5 years later that I had enough 'heavenly time, favorable location, and favorable people' to do it," Tuan said.

F88 Trading Joint Stock Company was established on June 30, 2013, headquartered in Hanoi. This pawnshop system has received capital from two large investment funds in the world , Mekong Capital and Granite Oak.

Initially, this company had a charter capital of 54.5 billion VND. Of which, F88 Investment Joint Stock Company (F88 Invest) held the majority, with an ownership ratio of up to 99.99% of the charter capital. After many capital increases, updated to October 2022, F88 had a charter capital of 566.9 billion VND.

Meanwhile, F88 Invest was established in November 2015, with its headquarters located at a number of houses on Hung Vuong Street, Viet Tri City, Phu Tho Province. Updated to November 2022, F88 Invest's capital scale reached 69.88 billion VND.

With more than 600 transaction offices, F88 is currently present in 63 provinces and cities nationwide.

On the morning of March 6, at Van Phon Tower building (Nguyen Oanh street, Go Vap district, Ho Chi Minh City), Ho Chi Minh City police carried out a blockade and search order on F88 Trading Joint Stock Company at Van Phon Tower building (Nguyen Oanh street, Go Vap district, Ho Chi Minh City).

This move was made after the Ho Chi Minh City Police coordinated with Go Vap District Police to investigate and record reports that F88 Trading Joint Stock Company was conducting lending activities to extort property in a "terrorist" manner.

According to many customers, "hiding" under the grandiose exterior, the internal operation of the F88 system is actually a "black credit" style of pawn lending. Currently, F88 Company is lending at interest rates ranging from 1,500 to 2,000 VND/1 million/day (equivalent to 4.5 - 7.5%/month or 54 - 90%/year).

On the afternoon of March 6, Ho Chi Minh City Police coordinated with the functional departments of the Ministry of Public Security to search many branches of F88 Company in Ho Chi Minh City. During the inspection, the police seized many documents, records and machines.

The case is still under investigation by the police.

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