HO CHI MINH CITY (AFP) – Vietnam’s top soft drinks tycoon was jailed for eight years yesterday in a USD40 million fraud case, the latest high-profile business figure snared in the country’s sweeping crackdown on corruption.
The communist nation’s wide-ranging campaign to wipe out endemic graft has seen more than 4,400 people charged with criminal offences, including officials and senior business figures.
A court in Ho Chi Minh City found Tran Qui Thanh and his two daughters guilty of scamming investors over loans issued in 2019 and 2020.
Thanh, the 71-year-old chairman of beverage group Tan Hiep Phat, was ruled to have masterminded scams to appropriate assets put up as collateral against loans, state media reported.
Even when the borrowers paid back the money with interest, Thanh would refuse to give back the assets on various pretexts, including claiming they had forfeited their repurchase rights due to contract breaches.
The court sentenced Thanh’s 43-year-old daughter Tran Uyen Phuong, the company’s deputy chief executive officer, to four years in jail.
Younger daughter Tran Ngoc Bich, 40, was given a suspended three-year jail sentence.
Tan Hiep Phat is one of Vietnam’s biggest beverage companies, known for its range of bottled tea and energy drinks.
In his final words before the court, Thanh said he regretted what happened and was ready to take responsibility. “I would like to be given leniency, handing me the chance to come back to society soon for my continued work and devotion,” Thanh was quoted as saying.
Judge Huynh Van Truc, who read the verdict in court yesterday, said the defendants’ crimes had “caused danger to society”.
“The defendants were well aware that their behaviour would be punished by law but they had deliberately committed the crime,” the judge said.
