Former Sacombank vice chairman released from prison

Former vice board chairman of Sacombank Tram Be has completed two prison sentences, Tra Vinh province's prosecution authority told local media on Wednesday.

Tram Be was arrested on August 1, 2017. On August 6, 2018, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced him to four years in prison for the crime of intentionally violating state regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences.

The damage occurred when Tram Be held the position of vice board chairman and credit council chairman of Sacombank.

On July 30, 2020, the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City sentenced Tram Be, former vice board chairman of Southern Bank, to three years in prison.

Tram Be, 64, is a Vietnamese citizen of Chinese origin born in Tra Vinh provine.

Before entering the banking industry, he invested in many other fields. He established Dong Anh Forest Products Processing Company and was a board member of Binh Chanh Construction Investment Shareholding Company (BCCI) and chairman of Trieu An Hospital Corporation.

In 2004, Tram Be continued his foray into the financial sector with the purchase of a large number of shares in Southern Bank and became a board member.

He then acquired more shares in Sacombank and proposed merging Southern Bank, which was struggling with a high bad debt ratio, into Sacombank. The proposal received State Bank approval in August 2015.

Meanwhile, former senior advisor of TrustBank Hua Thi Phan has passed away at the age of 76 after many years of ill health.

In addition to her first appearance in court in 2015, she was absent from all subsequent court sessions and reprieved due to serious illness.

From 2018 to 2020, she was repeatedly tried by the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City and the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City in two cases related to violations during her time running Trustbank.

Phan was determined to have taken advantage of her 85% ownership in Trustbank to manipulate the bank's activities,directing board members, employees and family members to commit multiple violations to appropriate and cause damage worth trillions of dong (VND1 trillion = $42.33 million) to the bank.

Phan was accused of appropriating VND12 trillion ($508 million) from Trustbank. At the end of May 2018, at the first stage trial, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City for the crime of abusing trust to appropriate property, and 20 years in prison for the crime of intentionally violating state regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences.

Combined with the 17-year prison sentence previously announced by the High People's Court in Hanoi, she must serve 30 years in prison, the highest sentence of a fixed-term penalty. She was also ordered to return more than VND16 trillion ($677.36 million).