Nguyen Van Son, was convicted of masterminding the theft while head of the coast guard, in what the judge described as a 'particularly serious case' that hurt the image of the defence services, reports say.

The investigation concerns the revelation of private documents by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists over transactions carried out at offshore financial centres.

It is estimated that tens of millions of ringgit had been misused by the group which originally applied for Mitra grants to organise socioeconomic programmes for the Indian community.