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Chinese, Vietnamese get jail terms for underground banking scam
By Zhang Xuanchen |
December 22, 2010, Wednesday
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Online Edition
Online Edition
TWELVE people including eight Vietnamese have received jail terms of up to three years in jail for operating underground banking services in southern China.
Transactions were worth a total of 7.2 billion yuan (US$1.08 billion), China News service reported today.
Ruan Zhizhong, 31, was sentenced to two years in jail with a three-year reprieve on December 17.
The Intermediate People's Court of Fangchenggang City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which shares a border with Vietnam, also fined Ruan 300,000 yuan.
The other defendants received sentences ranging from one year and eight months to three years in jail. Eight Vietnamese were also handed down fines from 150,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan. They were ordered deported after serving their sentences in China, the court said.
The defendants were accused of separately running several underground banks in bordering cities between China and Vietnam. They provided illegal Chinese-Vietnamese currency exchange services from late 2004 to early 2008.
Most of their clients were businessmen from China, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries who profited from increasingly booming cross-border trade but were reluctant to go through relatively complicated procedures required by legitimate commercial banks, the report said.
Through the illegal service, a client could funnel money via one of the defendant's lawful bank accounts and receive the converted money based on a rate the two parties agreed upon in advance, according to the report.
The defendants usually charged clients 20 yuan to 30 yuan for each foreign exchange transaction, about half of the fee charged by commercial banks.
Transactions were worth a total of 7.2 billion yuan (US$1.08 billion), China News service reported today.
Ruan Zhizhong, 31, was sentenced to two years in jail with a three-year reprieve on December 17.
The Intermediate People's Court of Fangchenggang City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which shares a border with Vietnam, also fined Ruan 300,000 yuan.
The other defendants received sentences ranging from one year and eight months to three years in jail. Eight Vietnamese were also handed down fines from 150,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan. They were ordered deported after serving their sentences in China, the court said.
The defendants were accused of separately running several underground banks in bordering cities between China and Vietnam. They provided illegal Chinese-Vietnamese currency exchange services from late 2004 to early 2008.
Most of their clients were businessmen from China, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries who profited from increasingly booming cross-border trade but were reluctant to go through relatively complicated procedures required by legitimate commercial banks, the report said.
Through the illegal service, a client could funnel money via one of the defendant's lawful bank accounts and receive the converted money based on a rate the two parties agreed upon in advance, according to the report.
The defendants usually charged clients 20 yuan to 30 yuan for each foreign exchange transaction, about half of the fee charged by commercial banks.
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