HÀ NỘI — The People’s Court of Hà Nội today sentenced 11 defendants in a fraud case that occurred at the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank, Nghệ An Branch, eight years ago.

Trịnh Khánh Hồng, 50, former chairman of the Board of Trustees and General Director of Tân Hồng Import-Export Company, was sentenced to life in jail for “asset misappropriation fraud” and 20 years for “swindling in order to misappropriate assets”.

Đỗ Đức Hưng, 61, former director of Agribank Hồng Hà, was given 23 years in jail, and Trương Đăn Dần, 43, was given 12 years in jail, both for “asset misappropriation fraud” and violating lending regulations.

Nguyễn Văn Mạnh, chief accountant of Tân Hồng company was sentenced to 11 years in jail for swindling to misappropriate assets.

The five defendants to receive custodial sentences, Đỗ Minh Hiền, former head of the planning unit of Agribank Hồng Hà, Đinh Văn Hải, former director of Đức Hùng Company, Trần Hữu Tuân, director of Giang Linh Company, Nguyễn Thị Mỹ, director of Thái An Company, and Đỗ Hữu Bách, director of Đức Hùng Company, were given from five to seven years in jail for fraudulent misappropriation of assets.

Two credit staff of Agribank Hồng Hà, Nguyễn Văn Thúy and Đinh Minh Đạo, were given three years probation.

According to the court indictment, in 2009, Trịnh Khanh Hồng set up a project with loans of US$20 million from Agribank to plant material forest. However when the loan was approved, Hồng used the money for his own purposes. He also created 965 fake invoices showing that he gave the money to households to plant trees.

Hồng worked with the other defendants to misappropriate more than VNĐ281 billion (US$12.8 million) from companies and borrowed another VNĐ200 billion ($8.8 million) from banks.

In this case, five former staff from Agribank Hồng Hà, who knew that Hồng was incapable of paying back the loans but didn’t want to have bad debts on their record, signed guarantee documents so that Hồng could borrow more money. — VNS