VietNamNet Bridge – The HCMC People’s Court on Monday handed down prison and probation terms on former employees of China Airlines’ HCMC branch for embezzling a total of more than VND17 billion from the Taiwan carrier.

Illustrative image. – File photo

Dip Jing Chi and Lu Kam Hei were sentenced to 14 and 12 years in jail respectively while Fu Wei Yi got a three-year probation term. The three defendants were former accountants and cashiers at the airline’s office in the city.

The court also ordered them to compensate over VND17 billion to China Airlines’ HCMC branch but rejected the carrier’s request for compensation of over VND387 billion as groundless.

The defendants started to stand trial last Friday.

In December 2011, Chen Fei Fan, general director of China Airlines’ HCMC branch, took legal action against Yip, Lu and Fu for appropriating US$5.78 million from China Airlines and around US$184,000 from Mandarin Airlines represented by the carrier in this market.

According to the court’s indictment, Yip, Lu and Fu took advantage of loopholes in financial management and exchange rate differences between the greenback, Taiwanese currency and Vietnamese dong, and colluded with former chief accountants of the branch to appropriate part of the carrier’s daily revenues for years.

Investigators found that the three defendants illegally took away over VND17 billion from the HCMC branch of China Airlines. However, representatives of this branch claimed that the total losses in 2008-2011 amounted to VND387 billion and nearly US$100,000.

Local prosecutors earlier proposed prison terms from three to five years for Fu, 14-15 years for Lu and 12-13 years for Yip.

At the recent hearing, lawyers of the defendants pointed out many shortcomings of investigators as they had not identified the roles of former chief accountants of the airline in this embezzlement case. There were up to eight chief accountants suspected of involvement in the case.

SGT/VNN