Apax Leaders English school boss accused of $295M fraud

Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, who ran English language school Apax Leaders, is accused of appropriating VND7.677 trillion (US$295 million) from more than 10,000 people and bribing a business partner to fake his company's revenue.

The Ministry of Public Security's Police Department for Investigation of Corruption, Economic and Smuggling Crimes (C03) concluded a supplementary investigation into the case on Sept. 22. It again recommended prosecuting Thuy, chairman and CEO of Egroup Education Group JSC, along with 28 others.

The Supreme People's Procuracy indicted the 29 in December 2025 but returned the file to police in late July for further investigation.

Thuy is accused of fraud and giving bribes, as is Nguyen Manh Phu, Egroup's finance director and chief accountant at its Egame Investment and Distribution JSC.

Tong Thi Kim Lien, chairwoman and chief financial officer of Nhat Tran Trading and Service JSC, is accused of taking bribes. The other 26, accountants and business managers at Egame, are accused of fraud.

Thuy, 44, rose to fame as an investor on the reality show Shark Tank Vietnam. He founded Egroup and the Apax Leaders English-language chain, and was arrested in March 2024.

Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, who founded Egroup and the Apax Leaders English-language chain. Photo courtesy of Egroup

Egroup raised capital for 20 subsidiaries that relied heavily on borrowed money, according to the indictment. Its only real business was Apax Leaders, which Thuy used to burnish his image and attract investors.

Prosecutors allege he had Egroup's charter capital inflated on paper from VND32 billion to VND962.5 billion, then used Egame from 2015 to 2023 to sell shares that did not exist.

Investors paid VND38,000 ($1.44) per share, and Thuy pledged to buy the shares back a year later for VND42,000, a return of about 10.5%.

In exchange, investors signed their shareholder rights over to him.

Early investors put in small sums over short terms and were paid in full and on time, sometimes with cash and gold as holiday gifts.

As interest obligations mounted and Egroup's projects failed to generate revenue, the company could no longer pay.

Thuy sold more than 206 million non-existent shares to more than 10,000 investors.

He directed that 70% of the money go toward paying earlier investors to avoid detection, and the rest toward personal debts such as bank loans and rent.

Fake revenue

In 2016, Thuy asked Lien to run fictitious sales through Nhat Tran, a Ho Chi Minh City trader of SIM cards and prepaid phone cards, to make Egroup look like a high-revenue business, according to the indictment.

Lien agreed in exchange for an annual fee of 2% of the fake revenue, plus costs such as bank charges.

Nhat Tran also granted Egroup small discounts so the trades would appear profitable on its books, but Thuy's group had to hand that money back to Lien.

From December 2016 to September 2021, Lien had her staff sign 12 sham contracts and issue fake value-added tax invoices.

As a result, Egroup booked more than VND2.3 trillion ($87 million) in fictitious revenue, 70% of the total in its financial statements.

Thuy owed Lien VND46.5 billion under their deal, but as new investor money dried up, he paid her just under VND32 billion ($1.2 million).

According to the indictment, more than VND20 billion of that was paid between January 2018 and February 2020, after the 2015 Penal Code extended bribery offenses to private companies.