HANOI: A Vietnamese court has sentenced 16 former officials from the country’s only state-sanctioned gold bar producer to lengthy prison terms in a major corruption case.
The Ho Chi Minh City court delivered verdicts after a five-day trial involving former Saigon Jewelry Company executives accused of multimillion-dollar fraud.
Former SJC CEO Le Thuy Hang received a 25-year prison sentence for property embezzlement and abuse of power.
State media reported Hang pocketed USD 2.7 million and caused USD 4 million in losses to state coffers through fraudulent schemes.
Her 15 accomplices, all SJC staff members, received prison terms ranging from two-year suspended sentences to over 22 years.
Between 2021 and 2024, Hang directed subordinates to inflate loss rates when processing 10 tonnes of SJC-branded gold bars.
This scheme allowed them to appropriate nearly 3.6 kilograms of gold through falsified documents.
The court found that Hang illegally manufactured and sold approximately 235 kilograms of SJC gold bars and tens of thousands of gold rings.
She also ordered staff to create fake customer lists to smuggle out about 34 kilograms of gold.
“The defendants had conducted very sophisticated acts, bypassing the tight monitor by the State Bank of Vietnam,“ VNExpress quoted the verdict as stating.
“They had abused state policy and their power to violate the state gold management mechanism, causing instability to the market.”
The court ordered all defendants to repay approximately 640 kilograms of gold to the state.
SJC has maintained Vietnam’s gold bullion production monopoly since 2012 under state authorization.
The State Bank of Vietnam announced in August it will allow qualified commercial banks and enterprises to produce gold bars starting October 10.
This decision replaces the former state-exclusive mechanism that granted SJC its monopoly position.
Vietnamese families and businesses have long relied on gold as a store of value and hedge against currency depreciation.
Local gold prices typically exceed global trading prices due to taxes and market distortions in Vietnam. – AFP