VietNamNet Bridge – Forging signatures of the former chief representative of the AP bureau in Hanoi to appropriate money, Nguyen Thi Van Huong was sentenced 8 years in jail.



The Hanoi People’s Court on June 7 tried Huong, 39, for swindling to appropriate assets. After considering the case, the judgment council sentenced the former assistant of the AP office in Hanoi 8 years in jail.

On February 9, 2009, Hanoi police received a letter of denunciation from the US news agency AP’s bureau in Hanoi. The bureau accused Huong of forging signatures of the chief representative, Mr. Benjamin Stocking, to embezzle a lot of money and ran away.

According to investigators, Huong was in charged of managing the bureau’s seals and accounting activities. In 2007, 2008, this woman forged Benjamin Stocking’s signatures on the bureau’s money transfer orders to transfer VND240 million (around $15,000) from the bureau account into her account.

In 2008, she also appropriated money through erasing numbers on checks and filled in higher numbers.

Using these tricks, from 2007 to 2008, Huong embezzled over VND7.2 billion (over $300,000) of the AP bureau.

Afraid of being uncovered, Huong transferred part of the money, nearly VND3.2 billion, back to the bureau account on December 18, 2007. She already spent the remaining VND4.9 billion and could not return.

In addition, Huong asked her colleagues to borrow tens of thousands of USD from banks for her and she could not pay the loans. However, investigators considered these cases as civil relations.

T. Nhung