Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Aug 6 (EFE).- A Hanoi court sentenced one of the country’s best-known businessmen to 21 years in prison for fraud and stock market manipulation worth $143 million, official sources reported Tuesday.
According to a government statement, Trinh Van Quyet, former president of the FLC Group business conglomerate, and 49 other defendants were found guilty Monday by the Hanoi People’s Court after causing losses of VND4.3 trillion ($171 million) to investors.
Quyet, a 49-year-old businessman known for his real estate empire of luxury residential complexes and golf courses and founding the airline Bamboo Airways in 2019, received the highest sentence, while other defendants got between 15 months and 14 years in prison.
The court said the manipulation of the stock market allowed him to fraudulently pocket VND3.6 trillion between 2017 and 2022.
«Through the stock market, the defendants acted fraudulently, which led to distrust of the stock market and provoked anger in society,» reads the sentence, cited by local media.
According to the court, Quyet and his collaborators’ actions harmed more than 25,800 investors, who bought shares in FLC Faros Construction (one of the companies in the FLC group) after the company’s capital was inflated to enter the stock market.
Trinh Thi Minh Hue, an accountant at FLC and Quyet’s sister, received the second highest sentence, 14 years, for opening 500 accounts in the name of other collaborators to buy and sell FLC shares and thus manipulate the volume of transactions.
The sentences in this macro-trial constitute a new chapter in the anti-corruption campaign launched by Vietnam in recent years and which has affected high-level politicians and businessmen.
The most high-profile case was that of tycoon Truong My Lan, sentenced to death in April for appropriating some $12.5 billion through bank deposits in the largest known fraud case in Vietnam’s history. EFE
esj/lds
