Facebooker in Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province fined for posting about bank run

Vietnamese police have been cracking down on rumors about mass withdrawals from Saigon Commercial Bank.

Oct 14, 2022 - 09:56
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Facebooker in Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province fined for posting about bank run

A 28-year-old Facebook user with the initials T.H.Q., who lives in Cam Pha city, in Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province, has been fined the equivalent of U.S.$310. Police say the social media user was "posting false information about people withdrawing money from banks, simultaneously creating a sense of insecurity and causing confusion among the public." 

The fine was handed down on Wednesday. State-controlled media reported  that the Internal Political Security Department of Quang Ninh province’s Police Department was the unit that tracked down the Facebook user and administered the fine.

Quang Ninh police said the Facebook post appeared on Oct. 8, the day after the news that Truong My Lan -- Chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group -- had been arrested. T.H.Q.posted on his or her page that people reacted to the report by rushing to withdraw money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB).

Truong My Lan was arrested on fraud allegations related to the issuance and trading of bonds. Vietnamese media said SCB has made it clear that she has no executive position at the bank and a real estate firm that belongs to Van Thinh Phat Group is also not a SCB shareholder. 

In the past few days, police agencies in provinces and cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Binh Thuan, Ha Nam and Binh Phuoc have clamped down on social media users who have been accused of spreading false information about people withdrawing money from SCB on their personal pages.

SCB is Vietnam's fifth-largest commercial bank, according to Bloomberg News.