Vietnam arrests ship firm execs for ‘embezzling US$4.5 mln’

HANOI: Two executives from a near-bankrupt state-run shipbuilding company have been arrested in Vietnam on accusations of embezzling US$4.5 million in collusion with a scandalplagued bank, as the one-party state broadens its unprecedented corruption crackdown.

The once high-rolling bigwigs are the latest ex-officials ensnared in a tangled web of corruption cases linking several state-run firms to banks accused of mismanagement and graft.

Dozens of bankers, businessmen and former officials have been jailed as part of the anti-graft campaign waged by a conservative leadership in charge since 2016.

Truong Van Tuyen, the former director of Vinashin — a once-massive firm saved by the state from collapsing under heavy debt in 2010 — and current deputy director Pham Thanh Son were arrested Monday, the ministry of public security said in a statement.

They were being investigated for ‘abusing position and power to appropriate assets’, it added.

The pair is accused of illegally approving deposits into Ocean Bank, a private bank embroiled in its own corruption scandal that has seen dozens convicted.

Tuy en and Son allegedly pocketed US$4.5 million along with a former Vinashin chief accountant who is already behind bars.

The disgraced shipbuilding firm was once a crown jewel among communist Vietnam’s 500 or so state-run enterprises.