Hot Facebooker arrested for disseminating “unverified” stock market information

Dang Nhu Quynh, a well-known Facebook blogger in Hanoi, was detained on Thursday over accusations of using social media to disseminate "unverified" information that caused harm to the local stock market.

To An Xo, chief of staff and spokesman at the Ministry of Public Security, said Quynh was held by the ministry's investigative agency and the Cyber Security Agency for "abusing freedom and democracy to infringe on the legal interests of the state, organizations and individuals under Article 331 of the Penal Code."

"There are indications that his acts have negatively impacted the finance and stock markets," Xo added.

Quynh recently posted several articles on his Facebook account regarding FLC and Tan Hoang Minh groups, whose top leaders have been arrested for further investigations on "market manipulation" and “defrauding to appropriate property”, respectively.

Previously in March, Quynh was summoned by the Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05) for posting more than 300 "unverified" and "false" articles regarding Covid-19 situations in cities and provinces. A05 then compelled Quynh to remove 216 articles.

The police are also clarifying some others’ behavior in distributing false information, causing insecurity in the stock and corporate bond markets, said authorities.

On January 10, Trinh Van Quyet, Chairman of FLC Group, was discovered to have sold 74.8 million FLC shares without informing the market in advance as required by the law, given his being the company chairman. The stock market regulator SSC on January 17 fined Quyet VND1.5 billion (nearly $66,000) for his act and froze his securities trading account for five months. Quyet was arrested on March 29 on charges of “manipulating” and “concealing information in securities activities”.

Meanwhile, Do Anh Dung, Chairman of Tan Hoang Minh, which is well known for developing many super luxury apartment projects in “golden” land areas across Hanoi since 2006, was detained by the investigative police on April 5 for allegedly “defrauding to appropriate property”. Vietnam’s stock market watchdog on April 4, called off nine separate bond issuances totaling VND10,030 billion (about $439 million) in value by three companies under Tan Hoang Minh due to its provision of “untrue information”.