Embezzlement of 12 billion VND by Deputy Director of Vietnam Gold Company

On November 27, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court opened the first-instance trial of defendants Truong Cong Dao (37 years old, former Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of Vietnam Gold Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company), Nguyen Thi Nga (treasurer) and Hoang Thi Mai Phuong (accountant) for the crime of embezzlement of property.

At the end of 2017, Dao signed a labor contract with Vietnam Gold Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company (Vietnam Gold Company) and was appointed Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City branch.

Thủ đoạn tham ô 12 tỷ đồng của Phó giám đốc Công ty vàng Việt Nam - 1 — Defendants in court (Photo: Xuan Duy).

Dao is authorized by the branch director to sign gold purchase and sale documents, receipts and payments, import and export vouchers, inventory and treasury records in Ho Chi Minh City; on behalf of the branch director to inspect and control accounting documents and treasury in Ho Chi Minh City.

From January 2019 to September 2019, Dao repeatedly directed Nguyen Thi Nga, the branch treasurer, to transfer the branch's money and gold for his use. At the same time, this man asked the accountant, Hoang Thi Mai Huong, to report false data to the company to avoid detection.

In September 2019, the Board of Directors of Vietnam Gold Company directed the Ho Chi Minh City branch to transfer gold to the new headquarters and discovered a shortage of 172 taels of SJC gold and 6.2 billion VND compared to the accounting books.

At the investigation agency, Dao confessed that during his work at the Vietnam Gold Company, due to the relatively high assigned targets, it was difficult to achieve the simple buying and selling of gold, so he thought of a way to sell the gold that the company gave to the branch to lend the money for interest, to make up for the company's assigned targets.

Around May 2019, due to the increase in gold prices, the 200 taels of SJC gold that Dao had previously sold suffered a heavy loss. Dao contacted gold shops to agree to sell gold short, and if the gold price dropped, he would get the difference from the gold shop. However, at this time, gold prices were continuously increasing, so selling gold short was even more of a loss.

The investigation agency determined that Dao must be held responsible for the crime of embezzlement of property for a total amount of 12.7 billion VND. Nguyen Thi Nga and Hoang Thi Mai Phuong must also be held criminally responsible for their role as accomplices in helping Dao.

During the interrogation in court today, the defendant Dao admitted his wrongdoings. However, the former deputy director said that out of the 12.7 billion VND, there was an amount of more than 300 million transferred to a customer to pay for the purchase of gold, not to appropriate it.

Meanwhile, the company representative said that Dao withdrew this money from the treasury and declared it to buy gold, but the verification results did not show any gold being imported into the company's treasury. Therefore, the company requested that Dao be responsible for this money.

After deliberation, the panel of judges determined that the amount of more than 300 million VND that Dao claimed to have transferred to customers had not been investigated and clarified, so they decided to return the case file for further investigation.

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