A former vault manager of Hanoi-based Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank) has been indicted for stealing of 246 taels (nearly 300 troy ounces) of gold from the bank to finance his stock and cryptocurrency investments.

The Hanoi People’s Procuracy prosecuted Nguyen Van Linh, 38, on Friday for embezzlement.

TPBank has been operating a central vault since June 2020, consolidating the vaults of its branches to store various assets, including gold, cash, valuable documents, and collateral, according to the indictment.

The bank specifically categorizes its gold holdings into three types for management purposes: trading gold, custodial gold, and collateralized gold.

In early June 2020, Linh was appointed manager of the central vault, responsible for preserving, supervising, and inventorying assets in the vault.

Around mid-2017, Linh observed that the amount of collateralized gold in the vault experienced minimal fluctuations and noted that this type of gold was typically inventoried semiannually with advance notice.

In contrast, the gold in the trading and custodial safes was checked daily.

This observation led him to devise a plan to appropriate some of the pledged gold to invest in stocks and cryptocurrencies.

He then turned his attention to a sealed plastic bag containing 246 taels of SJC-branded gold, which had been pledged by a TPBank client, D.T.C., in 2016.

On July 5, 2017, he discreetly removed an equivalent amount of SJC gold from the trading gold safe, placed it in a box, and concealed it outside the vault.

The next morning, he successfully smuggled the box of 246 taels of gold out of the bank and later sold it for VND8.8 billion (US$347,920).

He then transferred the entire amount into his securities account.

To cover up the theft and avoid detection during inventory checks, Linh moved the bag of 246 taels of gold from the collateral safe to the trading safe.

In March 2019, he returned the bag to the collateral safe, knowing that C. was about to repay his loan under a contract and would be reclaiming his pledged gold.

To cover the shortage in the trading gold safe, he replaced the stolen gold with an equivalent amount of SJC gold from another pledger.

By employing this tactic – using gold from the collateral safe to replace the gold he had stolen from the trading safe – he was able to conceal his theft and avoid detection.

Similarly, in January 2021, after a female client pledged 561 taels of gold to the bank for a loan, Linh transferred 246 taels from her pledge to the trading gold safe to replace the gold he had appropriated.

When the client returned to repay her loan and reclaim her pledged gold, Linh could not find a suitable source to return to her.

Unable to repay the stolen gold and realizing he had no way to cover up his theft, Linh turned himself in to police on September 16, 2023, confessing to the embezzlement of 246 taels of gold, equivalent to 298.95 troy ounces.

On August 29, 2024, the bank announced it had received insurance payments totaling $468,319 and over VND5.3 billion ($209,550) following the theft.

The lender has opted not to pursue civil claims against Linh and has appealed to the investigating police agency for a reduction in his criminal responsibility.

Currently, police have frozen 9,393 shares belonging to the defendant, according to national broadcaster Vietnam Television.

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