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A court in northern Vietnam sentenced an American man to 13 years in prison for trying to dupe people swept up in Vietnam's stock market mania, a court official said Thursday.
Ly Huu Hoang, 62, of California, was convicted of fraud Wednesday in Vietnam's northern port city of Haiphong, the Associated Press quoted presiding judge Tran Huu Khoat as saying. Hoang was found guilty of counterfeiting stock certificates and trying to sell them to eager local investors. Two of Hoang's associates, local businesswomen Lam Thu Huong and Tran Kim Sen, were sentenced to eight years and seven years respectively on the same charges, Khoat said. The three printed share coupons with a face value of VND95 billion (US$5.9 million) in a real Vietnamese company called Viet Toan Cau, Khoat said. They then invited 300 people to purchase the shares at a fair, scheduled last Sept. 1 at a Haiphong resort. The actual company chairman somehow received an invitation, and immediately informed police of the scheme. Although it has cooled off a bit recently, Vietnam's stock market has been booming, rising 145 percent last year and 25 percent so far this year. Vietnam launched the market in Ho Chi Minh City in July 2000. It now has 107 listed companies and has attracted growing interest from both ordinary Vietnamese investors and international fund managers.
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