Seven officials accused of helping former FLC chairman manipulate stock market

Seven officials have been accused of assisting Trinh Van Quyet, former chairman of real estate developer FLC Group, in manipulating stocks, said the Ministry of Public Security’s investigation agency (C01) on Saturday.

The agency proposed prosecuting three officials at the Public Company Supervision Department and the Vietnam Securities Depository, both under the State Securities Commission (SSC), for intentionally publishing false information or concealing information related to securities activities, in line with Clause 2, Article 209, the Penal Code.

Four others from the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) were charged with abuse of power while performing duties per Clause 3, Article 356, the Penal Code.

These are the latest developments after two months of extended probe into the stock manipulation and asset appropriation case involving Quyet. So far C01 has proposed prosecuting 51 individuals for several crimes in this case.

According to the police, between May 2017 and January 2022, Quyet directed his two younger sisters, Trinh Thi Thuy Nga and Trinh Thi Minh Hue, and other people, to use different trading accounts to manipulate several tickers, including FLC of FLC Group, AMD of FLC Stone Mining And Investment JSC, HAI of HAI Agrochem HSC, GAB of FLC Mining Investment & Asset Management JSC and ART of BOS Securities.

Over the period, Quyet and his accomplices manipulated trading to create a fake demand for the shares of the five companies in 562 trading sessions.

Notably, on January 10, 2022, Quyet asked his sisters to sell 74.8 million shares without registration for VND1.6 trillion ($64.94 million), making the FLC price drop 12.9% in that session.

By manipulating these five stocks, the group earned illegal profits of VND723 billion ($29.34 million), according to investigators.

The police also accused Quyet and his accomplices of appropriating money from investors between 2014 and 2016 by conducting procedures to increase FLC Faros’s charter capital from VND1.5 billion to VND4.3 trillion ($174.5 million).

Faros then requested the registration of a stock listing of 430 million ROS shares on the HoSE in order to sell them and pocket over VND3.6 trillion ($146.1 million) from investors.

Before Quyet was arrested, FLC Group had been known as one of Vietnam's leading property developers with many projects or investment proposals across the country.