The Supreme People's Procuracy of Vietnam has indicted Le Thuy Hang and four former officials of Saigon Jewelry Company Limited (SJC) on charges of embezzlement and abuse of power. The charges detail how Hang allegedly directed the illegal production and sale of SJC gold bars.

Eleven other individuals involved in the case are also facing charges related to one of the two aforementioned crimes.

=>> List of 16 defendants

SJC, owned by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, primarily manufactures and trades gold bars, precious metals, and gemstones. Since 2012, the State Bank of Vietnam has held the exclusive right to produce gold bars and designated SJC as the national gold bar brand.

SJC is authorized by the State Bank to reprocess damaged SJC gold bars, produce SJC gold rings, and sell SJC gold bars at stabilized prices. The company also has the authority to determine the price of SJC gold bars.

The indictment states that SJC requires State Bank approval for the quantity and timeframe of each reprocessing batch of damaged gold bars. The State Bank establishes a supervisory team to monitor all 12 steps of the process, both in person and via camera surveillance.

However, general director Le Thuy Hang and Tran Tan Phat (deputy director of the gold workshop at Tan Thuan Jewelry Enterprise) allegedly exploited loopholes in the supervisory process. During authorized reprocessing operations, Hang reportedly "directed the purchase of external gold to supplement SJC gold bar production," according to authorities.

Gold bars at SJC headquarters in District 3, 3/2025. Photo: Quynh Tran

Gold bars at SJC headquarters in District 3, 3/2025. Photo: Quynh Tran

Once the production plan was finalized with Hang, Phat coordinated with the gold workshop director and team leaders responsible for gold smelting, pressing, serial number stamping, and trimming. Their objective was to illegally produce and sell SJC gold bars for profit.

Hang was responsible for procuring the external gold, sourcing it from various local gold dealers. Between 6/2023 and 2/2024, she purchased 2,185 taels of gold for a total of 128 billion VND (equivalent to the market price of 99.99% gold rings) from a gold shop in Ho Chi Minh City. On 13/5/2022, she bought 88 taels from another shop for 6.1 billion VND.

Hang then delivered all the purchased gold to Phat for illegal production at the Tan Thuan gold workshop.

The illicit production process involved Doan Le Thanh (head of the gold smelting team) receiving the external gold from Phat before the State Bank's supervisory team arrived. Thanh would then smelt and cast the gold into bars, concealing them in an acid bath. When the official reprocessing began, Thanh would feign errors during the rolling and refining stages, necessitating a remelt. During this unsupervised period, Thanh would substitute the pre-smelted external gold into the official process.

The workshop's trimming team leader would then direct staff to check the gold content, trim, dry, and clean the gold bars to meet standards. The bars would then be stamped, although the quantity was not monitored. Phat would inform the serial number stamping team leader of the number of illicit bars produced. This team would then use a backup stamping machine to apply non-sequential serial numbers obtained by Phat from previously discarded sequences.

Simultaneously, the stamping team leader would falsely report to Phu, another team leader, an inflated number of damaged gold bars needing reprocessing, matching the number of illegally produced bars. This allowed Phu to instruct workers to overproduce gold bars, concealing the illicit production.

The illegally produced gold bars were hidden within the workshop. After the supervisory team left, Phat would retrieve them. Hang then directed the sale of these bars to gold shops in Ho Chi Minh City and to the SJC Hai Phong branch, disguised as sales from acquaintances.

General director Le Thuy Hang. Photo: SJC

General director Le Thuy Hang. Photo: SJC

Investigations reveal that between 2021 and 9/2024, SJC registered 119 reprocessing operations involving almost 108 million taels of gold. From 8/10/2022 to 2/21/2024, Hang allegedly smuggled external gold 56 times, resulting in the illegal production of 6,255 taels of SJC gold bars. The sale of these bars resulted in 74.8 billion VND in losses to the state budget. Hang allegedly profited 64.1 billion VND, Phat 6.1 billion VND, and Vien 980 million VND.

The Procuracy calculated the damages based on SJC's production costs for gold bars and rings from 2015 to 10/2024, which was 118,000 VND per tael. Based on this, the 6,255 taels of illegally produced gold bars represent a production cost loss of 738 million VND.

SJC is authorized to produce SJC gold rings, with the Tan Thuan workshop fulfilling orders from SJC's three sales departments. However, between 4/18/2024 and 9/2024, Hang allegedly exploited this system by directing Nguyen Thi Hue to purchase external gold for illegal ring production. This gold was then given to Tran Tan Phat, Mai Quoc Uy Vien, Doan Le Thanh, Truong Cong Anh, and Vo Huu Phu to produce unauthorized SJC gold rings for profit.

From 8/15/2023 to 9/6/2024, Hue oversaw the production of 46,285 items, including rings and other jewelry, totaling 11,503 taels of gold. Hue then directed the sale of 1,195 taels of these rings in Hai Phong, generating over 91 billion VND in revenue. The buyers subsequently resold the rings for profit.

After deducting production costs, Hue and Hang allegedly split the remaining 13.2 billion VND profit. Based on production costs, investigators estimate SJC's losses at over 1 billion VND.

In addition to the scheme with Hang and Hue, Phat also independently accepted gold from an employee of Mai Ha 1 private enterprise to illegally produce SJC gold rings, earning between 700,000 and 900,009 VND per tael. Phat reportedly earned over 300 million VND for producing 390 taels of illicit SJC gold rings.

Pham Du