The chief executive and accountant of an illegal gold exchange were captured Friday after police simultaneously raided its headquarters in Hanoi and a representative office in Ho Chi Minh City. Vu Duc Hieu, general director of VGX, an investment company based in Hanoi, and Nguyen Thi My Hanh, the company’s chief accountant, were arrested for “committing illegal business activities,” officers said on Friday. VGX is the operator of an online gold exchange of the same name, which has attracted some 700 investors with trading values estimated at VND110 billion (US$5.18 million), according to police under the Ministry of Public Security. The trading units on the VGX gold exchange are called lot, which can be worth up to $100,000 each. Investors can conduct transaction worth up to $1 million. The exchange also traded foreign currencies such as the US dollar, Euro, or Japanese yen, police said. Investors were required to contact VGX employees in person to create an account. They had to transfer money from their bank accounts to a VGX one in order to begin transactions at the illegal exchange via a software program called MT4, which was installed on their computers, according to officers. Trading gold via an online exchange is against Vietnamese law, as the government ordered that all such exchanges shut down by March 30, 2010. But around 30-40 online gold exchanges still operate illegally, according to police. These illicit gold exchanges attracted thousands of investors, with transactions worth trillions of dong. This money is not managed by the government, thus causing losses to the government’s tax collection, officers said. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 04:52:53 +0000
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