Vietnam charges businessman ‘Shark Binh’ with additional tax evasion offence

Vietnamese police have brought additional charges against Nguyen Hoa Binh, widely known as “Shark Binh”, accusing him of tax evasion linked to the operations of fintech firm Vimo Technology JSC, authorities said on Monday.

At a press briefing held by the Ministry of Public Security, Nguyen Duc Long, deputy director of Hanoi Police, said investigators have opened a new case against Binh and two other individuals, Nguyen Huu Tuat and Do Cong Dien, chairman of Vimo Technology, for tax evasion.

According to police, an expanded investigation found that in 2024 Vimo Technology had three shareholders – Dien, Binh and Tuat – and operated as a payment intermediary, providing collection and disbursement services through fee-based point-of-sale (POS) machines.

Due to the company’s large revenues, Binh allegedly instructed Dien and Tuat to conceal actual income and underreport revenues in February, March and April 2024 in order to reduce tax liabilities, resulting in tax losses of nearly VND30 billion ($1.14 million), police said.

Previously, in October, Hanoi Police initiated legal proceedings against Binh, chairman of NextTech Group, for “fraudulent appropriation of assets” related to the AntEx crypto project and “violating accounting regulations causing serious consequences” in connection with Nextland Real Estate JSC.

In total, 10 individuals, including Binh, have been subject to legal proceedings for the two charges.

Investigators determined that around May 2021, as chairman of NextTech, Binh and several associates discussed and agreed to jointly invest in developing the AntEx crypto project, stored on the Binance digital wallet.

The aim was selling AntEx tokens and attracting investors to raise capital for developing the VNDT cryptocurrency project and the VNDT e-wallet software.

Despite the project failing to meet its stated roadmap, Binh and NextTech shareholders withdrew money from the project’s main wallet, transferred them to personal wallets, converted them into the Vietnamese dong, and shared the proceeds.

Some of the funds were also allegedly transferred to other NextTech ecosystem companies to be used for unrelated purposes. Authorities estimate that Binh and founding shareholders misappropriated funds from about 30,000 investor wallets, which amounted to a particularly large sum.

Further investigation revealed that in 2022, Binh instructed the establishment of Nextland Real Estate JSC, where employees allegedly manipulated sales contracts by undervaluing transactions to hide revenue and reduce taxable profits, causing significant losses to the state budget.

Binh won the name "Shark Binh" as he joined Shark Tank, a popular reality television show where startup entrepreneurs presented their business ideas to a panel of wealthy investors, known as "Sharks," to seek investment capital in exchange for a stake in their company.