Once a symbol of inspiration for Vietnamese entrepreneurship, famous "sharks" such as Nguyen Ngoc Thuy (Shark Thuy), Pham Van Tam (Shark Tam) and Nguyen Hoa Binh (Shark Binh) have faced serious criminal charges or are involved in scandals related to investment deals.
Shark Thuy is stuck in legal problems due to financial violations
On March 22, 2024, the Investigation Police Agency of the Ministry of Public Security prosecuted and temporarily detained Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy - Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Egroup Education Group Joint Stock Company - for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property". Many investors accused Mr. Thuy of appropriating money through the transfer of Egroup shares.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, born in 1982, is known as "Shark Thuy" after participating in the Shark tank Vietnam program. He is the founder of the Egroup - Apax Holdings (IBC) education ecosystem. In which, Egroup Group is the parent company, prominent subsidiaries include: Apax Holdings - behind the Apax Leaders English language center chain, Igarten kindergarten system, Firbank Australia inter-level school; orEdu Infra Group Joint Stock Company, Ozen Health and Beauty Joint Stock Company; Apax English Joint Stock Company...
Egroup was once considered a successful model in the private education sector, at one point Apax Leaders owned more than 120 centers nationwide, serving about 120,000 students. In 2020, Apax Holdings' revenue reached VND 2,000 billion, double the previous two years. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, a chain of centers fell into financial crisis, owing teachers' salaries, paying parents' tuition fees and a series of complaints.
The situation became more serious when Hanoi Social Insurance announced that Egroup and its member companies were late in paying more than 103 billion VND in insurance. Of which, Apax Leaders owes 57.1 billion VND, IGarten owes 18.4 billion VND, and CMS Edu owes 10.6 billion VND.
In 2022, Apax Holdings recorded a net loss of VND 87 billion, the highest since its establishment. By the end of 2023, IBC shares were canceled from listing on HoSE and suspended from trading on UPCoM.
Along with the criminal investigation process and the suspension or dissolvement of dozens of centers, the Egroup ecosystem - once a symbol of the success of Vietnamese startups - is in trouble.
Shark Tam and allegations of smuggling and tax evasion
If Shark Thuy was caught up in a scandal of financial violations, Shark Tam faced accusations of tax evasion and smuggling.
Accordingly, from 2016 to July 2019, the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department (now the Tax Department of Region II) conducted an inspection of tax compliance at Asanzo Group.
Asanzo purchased components from Tran Thoan Company and signed a contract with VTB Company to process and assemble part of them. After that, Asanzo assembled the finished product as a air conditioner and exported it to Asanzo Refrigeration Company but did not issue an invoice or declare taxes.
The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department has issued a decision to transfer the case file with signs of crime to the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department for handling according to the law.
Pham Van Tam was identified as having directed Pham Xuan Tinh to sign principle contracts with Viet Tai Company, An Thien Company, Tran Thoan Company; then not issuing invoices and leaving them off accounting books related to sales revenue for Asanzo Refrigeration Company of Asanzo Group.
At the same time, using illegal invoices to account for goods and input materials in activities that arise tax obligations, with the purpose of evading the amount of tax payable of more than 15.7 billion VND.
In September 2025, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Procuracy issued an indictment to prosecute defendant Pham Van Tam (Chairman of the Board of Directors of Asanzo Company) for the crimes of Smuggling and Tax Evasion.
Shark Binh and the AntEx scandal
Most recently, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh (Shark Binh) - Chairman of NextTech Group - is also facing many reflections on the AntEx cryptocurrency project. Many investors said that they have lost money or cannot withdraw capital from this platform.
One of the projects that attracted attention and caused Shark Binh to be "rupped up" was the AntEx cryptocurrency/digital currency project, a case that has been investigated by the police.
According to research, in 2021, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh announced an investment of 2.5 million USD in the blockchain AntEx project through the Next100Blockchain fund, and also held the role of strategic consultant.
AntEx is introduced as a DeFi (deFi) financial ecosystem with the ambition of developing stablecoin VNDT, attracting the attention of the domestic investment community even though at that time, cryptographic assets had no legal basis in Vietnam.
Shortly after that, token AntEx plummeted and lost up to 99% of its value, the project's website and official social networking channels also stopped operating one by one.
In March 2023, AntEx suddenly changed its name to Rabbit (RAB) but the new token also continued to fall sharply, losing about 95% of its value compared to the peak. Since then, AntEx has been almost never mentioned.
Until September 24, Shark Binh suddenly commented on his personal page about the AntEx project. He said that many startups are currently issuing coin only to raise capital early. They threw coin, raised 3-5 million USD, and started to ' dig'. Most of the projects have not been implemented or have failed. 99% of coin falls into this situation: Investors lose money, while project owners 'hold money' to benefit legally" - Shark Binh said.
Regarding this project, Hanoi City Police said that they have received and processed complaints related to Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh and the AntEx virtual currency project.
