Another to be indicted in first stock manipulation
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Vietnamese police are seeking charges against a broker from Sacombank Securities Company for allegedly manipulating stock prices in Vietnam’s first busted stock manipulation fraud.
Le Minh Truyen, 27, is accused of helping Le Van Dung, former chairman of Vien Dong Pharma JSC, to illegally control stock prices between May and August 2010.
According to police, Truyen used ten different accounts to buy and sell a large amount of shares in the Ha Tay Pharmaceutical Joint-Stock Company.
It is the mastermind Dung who had set up 11 different accounts under family’s and friends’ names to ‘purchase’ the Ha Tay stocks, leading uninformed investors to rush in to buy the stocks at inflated prices. Ha Tay’s share prices subsequently increased more than threefold, from VND30,000 ($15) to VND100,000 (US$50) per share.
When Dung’s group began to unload their shares in late July, the share prices of Ha Tay company plunged dramatically, resulting in huge losses for the investors who had been misled.
Last November, Dung and three associates were arrested.
Truyen has not been arrested but been suspended from his brokering job.
Sacombank shares lost VND300, or 3.4 percent, to close at VND8,600 on Friday, though the VN-Index increased 3.2 percent to 410.82, the most since December 13.
