Hai Phong Thermal Power (stock code HND) issued an unusual personnel announcement confirming the arrest. The company stated that Duong Son Ba was criminally prosecuted by the Office of the Police Investigation Agency, Ministry of Public Security (C01), for the crime of forging documents of an agency or organization. Ba's specific wrongdoings remain undisclosed.

Duong Son Ba before his arrest. *Photo: HND*

Hai Phong Thermal Power was established in 2002, with owner's equity projected to exceed 5,980 billion dong by the end of 2025. Recently, the company, along with Quang Ninh and Thai Binh 2 thermal power plants, was implicated in the "environmental monitoring case," which involves manipulating monitoring indices. Results transmitted to the Department of Agriculture and Environment were allegedly altered, changing readings from exceeding acceptable limits to meeting them.

In late March, C01, in coordination with the Environmental Crime Prevention and Control Police Department (C05) under the Ministry of Public Security, prosecuted 74 defendants for 10 different crimes across various cases. The defendants include officials and leaders from state environmental management agencies, as well as representatives from 59 companies involved in wastewater discharge and environmental monitoring equipment installation nationwide.

Investigators revealed that monitoring equipment, installed in companies with wastewater and emission sources for oversight, was compromised. Despite being sealed and equipped with dedicated surveillance cameras, hundreds of environmental monitoring stations had their results altered, even through remote intervention.