The Ministry of Public Security has commenced legal proceedings against 16 ex-officials at a Vietnamese bank for activity that allegedly caused a total loss of over U$S448 million to the state budget last year.

As part of the expansion of a criminal case at the Vietnam Construction Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VNCB), in which Pham Cong Danh, former chairman of the management board, was arrested in July 2014, the ministry’s investigation agency on Sunday said it had issued a decision to take legal action against these ex-officials, who worked for the same bank.

The decision was approved by the Supreme People’s Procuracy, the agency added.

All the 16 former bankers are banned from leaving their residence, according to the decision. 

Of these, Pham The Tuan, an ex-member of the VNCB management board and ex-deputy head of the supervisory board of the lender, has been charged with “negligence of responsibility, causing serious consequences,” under Article 285 of the Penal Code.

Tuan is accused of being negligent in not reporting in a ‘timely fashion’ Danh’s and his staff’s activity to the bank’s management board, and of not taking effective measures to cope with their offenses, leading to the fact that they moved money out of the VNCB, causing a loss of VND2.5 trillion (over $112 million) to the bank.     

Another of these offenders is Le Cong Thao, ex-director of the bank’s information technology center, who has been alleged to “deliberately act against the state’s regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences.”

Meanwhile, the 14 remaining former bankers have all been indicted for “breaching regulations on loan provision in the operations of credit institutions.”

With their alleged activity, all the defendants in this case have caused a total loss of more than VND10 trillion (over $448.16 million), investigators said.

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