Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, who runs English language school Apax Leaders, faked revenues of VND2.35 trillion (US$89 million) at his company, Egroup, by partnering with a mobile top-up card distributor.
The Hanoi police said that in 2016 he paid a bribe of VND32 billion to Tong Thi Kim Lien, CEO of top-up card distributor Nhat Tran Company, for faking contracts to show she was selling top-up cards to Egroup.
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Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, chairman of Egroup. Photo courtesy of the company |
Egroup then sold the cards back to Nhat Tran’s associated companies to falsely create a trail of large sales for its Apax Leaders schools.
They signed 12 fake contracts worth VND2.35 trillion in this manner, accounting for 70% of all of Egroup’s revenues.
Thuy told investigators he falsified revenues so that he could con and sell non-existent shares in the company to gullible investors.
The police said Thuy and his accomplices falsely claimed Egroup had a charter capital of VND963 billion for the purpose.
They relied on Apax English school’s reputation to convince victims since it had 120 centers around the country at some point.
The 10,123 investors who bought the shares were told the company would buy them back after a year at higher prices.
But the police found that 8,926 of them never got their money back.
For this, the police have told prosecutors to charge Thuy with bribery and fraudulent appropriation of assets.
