On Monday, the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Vietnamese airline and property magnate Trinh Van Quyet to 21 years in prison after he was found guilty of defrauding shareholders of $144 million (about 131 million euros) by inflating the value of one of his companies. DW writes about this.
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What is known
The guilty verdict was handed down after a two-week trial of Kuyet and other accomplices.
Quyet, 48, is known in Vietnam for owning discount airline Bamboo Airways and FLC Group, which had a wide range of real estate holdings such as hotels, resorts and golf courses.
The defendants were found guilty of fraudulently inflating the value of FLC subsidiary FLC Faros shortly before it went public in 2016.
According to the indictment, the company sold 391 million shares to about 30,000 investors, effectively defrauding them of 3.6 trillion Vietnamese dong ($144 million).
Some of Kuyet’s co-defendants are officials who approved the scheme despite knowing the figures provided to investors were false, including Tran Duc Sinh, the former head of the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange. Sinh was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison.
The other defendants’ sentences ranged from prison to probation.
Recall
Kuyet’s arrest in 2022 came as part of a decade-long anti-corruption crusade by the Communist Party of Vietnam.
In April, another real estate mogul was sentenced to death for masterminding the country’s biggest financial fraud case. Triong My Lan was one of Vietnam's most important businessmen for years before he was convicted of a $12.5 billion fraud.
After decades of impunity, thousands of Communist Party officials have been disciplined on corruption charges since 2016, and eight Politburo members have been removed.
- Fraud
