Creditors wait outside Tuan Tai gold shop in Ho Chi Minh City Monday night.

Hundreds of creditors have laid siege to one of Ho Chi Minh City’s largest gold shops as of Wednesday morning after the shop’s owner disappeared without a trace over the weekend.

The shop owner is referred to as Mrs. Kim Thanh because she used to own a gold shop named Kim Thanh.

Creditors outside the shop said they lent money to Tuan Tai Production, Commerce and Service Ltd. and were promised interest higher than bank deposit rates.

A trader from the district’s Binh Tay wholesale market said he lent the gold shop VND1.1 billion (US$61,600) of his savings and has been receiving the monthly interest of 0.9 percent regularly for one year. “I didn’t know things would end up like this,” said the trader who asked to withhold his name.

The trader said he and his wife managed to get VND300 million last Saturday and were told to return on Monday to take the rest.

“We closed our shop to stay here all day but they haven’t given us anything. Maybe we’ll lose all the rest,” he told Thanh Nien in front of the gold shop at around 10p.m. on Monday.

“I feel like I’m sitting on fire.”

Many other Binh Tay traders as well as merchants from other provinces have kept the shop surrounded for days. Each has been given a note signed by Tran Thanh Tuan, owner of Tuan Tai Ltd, promising to clear the debts in seven days.

But the creditors’ worries have not been eased.

“How can we feel calm with just this note?” one said.

The woman said she and her husband worked as hired laborers but they lived mainly on the interest from their VND1-billion loan to Tuan Tai.

Another Binh Tay trader, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said he lent the gold shop last month and had not received any interest yet. “I lent VND1 billion and I know many people who lent tens of billions.”

A businessman from neighboring Dong Nai Province said he took money from different people to lend the shop VND18 billion just last Friday.

District 5 police, who came to the shop on Monday to maintain order and confiscate the gold, refused to disclose any information on the case but one police officer estimated that the creditors had lent several hundreds of billions of dongs in total.

Tuan Tai Ltd., which trades gold and jewelry and also invests in real estate, claims on its website that it is among a few firms allowed by the State Bank of Vietnam to trade gold using an account in a foreign country.

It has also invested in several gold exchanges run by Asia Commercial Bank, Saigon Commercial Bank (Sacombank) and Vietnam Export and Import Bank (Eximbank), but Tuan Tai accounts have been blocked recently due to losses, Saigon Times said Monday.

Reported by Dam Huy – Bao Thien