ANZ staff charged with appropriation of VND91 billion

The former head of the customer relations department at ANZ South Sai Gon branch appropriated VND91 billion ($3.95 million)

On January 21, the Ho Chi Minh City investigation agency finished the investigation into the appropriation of money by ANZ’s former staff and transferred the documents to the People's Procuracy to prosecute Nguyen Pham Gia Tho (1989, District 8, Ho Chi Minh City) and Nguyen Tuong Vi (1989) for fraudulent appropriation of assets.

As stated in the case file, Nguyen Pham Gia Tho was head of the customer relations department of the ANZ South Sai Gon branch. Since being appointed as manager, Tho’s duty was to mobilise savings deposits, advising customers who want to transfer money to reside abroad, consulting them on purchasing insurance, and proposing mortgage loans with savings books.

Seeing and understanding the loopholes in money management at ANZ, Tho intentionally appropriated money from the bank. He forged signatures of an ANZ client to register him/her for Internet Banking and then transfer the client's money to an account held by one of his relatives (Nguyen Tuong Vi), appropriating VND3 billion ($130,435).

Besides, Tho fabricated 12 loan applications for nine made-up customers, then asked the bank to transfer the requested loan amounts to these fake accounts to then withdraw and appropriate VND88.3 billion ($3.83 million).

After successfully appropriating VND91.3 billion ($3.97 million), Tho transferred VND77.6 billion ($3.37 million) to Nguyen Tuong Vi (the wife of Tho's cousin) to invest into a business.

The investigation agency also clarified that Tho and Vi used VND12.5 billion ($543,478) to buy house and car, and VND1.2 billion ($52,173) for personal purposes. Evidence suggests that Nguyen Tuong Vi clearly knew that the money Tho transferred to him was appropriated from ANZ, and provided information and forged signatures of her relatives to aid the offense.