Child was tricked into working abroad, parents cried in court demanding their child's return

Taking people abroad, the whole family commits a crime

The trial of two defendants Doan Thi Lieu (58 years old) and Ngo Thi Hong Hanh (26 years old), both residing in Dien Nguyen commune, Dien Chau district, for the crime of "Organizing for others to flee abroad" attracted public attention. Many relatives of the workers currently in Samoa attended the court.

Doan Thi Lieu's husband is Nguyen Van Tuan (born in 1972). The couple worked in agriculture locally before Tuan went to work abroad. Around October 2019, Mr. Luong Xuan T. and a friend contacted Tuan via social media to ask about procedures for going abroad. Tuan had made initial agreements via Facebook with the workers. To make sure, Tuan told the workers to come directly to her house to discuss the details. At Lieu's house, she called the workers to talk directly with Tuan.

Over the phone, Tuan promised to send workers to New Zealand for $8,500, following an invitation letter, to work in construction, with full accommodation. According to Tuan, the only procedures the workers needed to prepare were passports and judicial certificates. Tuan would pick up the workers, arrange accommodation, and pay them between 20 and 40 million VND for a period of 2 years. After that, Tuan would take care of the paperwork so that the workers could stay longer.

Ms. Doan Thi Lieu appeared in court with her daughter-in-law Ngo Thi Hong Hanh. Photo: Tran Vu

After listening to Tuan's advice, the workers agreed to go to New Zealand and were instructed to submit money and documents to Doan Thi Lieu. After hearing the news, 4 other workers also contacted Tuan and were instructed by him as above. Hearing Tuan's commitment to take them to New Zealand, 6 workers paid a total of more than 932 million VND to Lieu. Lieu transferred all of the money to her husband. During the process of receiving the workers' money, due to her poor eyesight and bad handwriting, Lieu asked her daughter-in-law, Ngo Thi Hong Hanh, to write a receipt and sign it.

Tuan then booked air tickets for the workers to Samoa (not New Zealand as promised) and contacted his wife to pay for the air tickets, and received the job invitation letter via the Messenger application to print out so that the workers could trust him. However, because Lieu was not proficient in using the Internet, he continued to ask his daughter-in-law to do these things.

On November 23, 2019, Lieu rented a car to take 6 workers to Vinh airport to go to Hanoi. Then, from Noi Bai airport, the workers took three flights to Samoa. Tuan picked up 6 workers and brought them to his room. After a while, because Tuan could not arrange work, 2 workers asked to return home. The remaining 4 workers are still in Samoa looking for work.

The investigation agency determined that in this case, Nguyen Van Tuan played a leading role but is currently abroad and has been wanted by the police. Doan Thi Lieu knew that Tuan did not have the function of sending people to work but helped her husband receive money, documents, print invitation letters for 6 workers... Ngo Thi Hong Hanh helped her husband's parents count money, write commitment papers...

At the trial, defendant Lieu testified that he acted on her husband’s instructions. Defendant Hanh stated that because her mother-in-law had poor eyesight and bad handwriting, she “helped” her write some documents when asked. The two defendants testified that they did not benefit from any financial gain in this case.

“Give me back my money and my child.”

Of the 6 workers Tuan brought to Samoa, 2 have returned to Vietnam and attended the court in person. 4 workers are currently in Samoa so their relatives attended the court as people with related rights and obligations.

Workers returning from Samoa recounted the promises Tuan had made before. “When Tuan’s family showed us the invitation letter, we, because we did not know the language, just glanced at it and completely trusted Tuan. After being sent to Samoa, Tuan did not arrange jobs for us. Moreover, the cost of food and living was expensive, and we did not have jobs, so life was very difficult,” a worker explained. That was also the reason they asked Tuan to bring us back to Vietnam. These two workers asked the defendants to return the amount of more than 190 million VND they had deposited (minus 30 million VND that the two defendants had compensated).

Relatives of the workers asked the defendants to return the money and bring their children back to the country. Photo: Tran Vu

Relatives of the workers currently in Samoa said that because the amount of money given to Tuan was too large, they still tried to stay and find work. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of them could not find a suitable job. Moreover, with their illegal status, they had to live in hiding and suffer. "I request that the defendants return all the money and return my child to me," the father of a worker choked up when mentioning his child in a foreign country.

Relatives of the workers said that due to difficult circumstances, they decided to take out loans and mortgage their assets to the bank to get money for their husbands and children to go abroad. Tuan promised to take them to New Zealand, but then they went to Samoa and had no jobs, making their already difficult lives even more miserable, especially with the large debt that was still there.

A jury analyzed that the defendants' actions were illegal. But the fact that the workers accepted it from the beginninggo "illegally"This is something that needs to be condemned. The workers know that if they want to work abroad, they must go through a company licensed by a competent State agency to operate as a consultant, broker, or recruiter. However, because they are afraid of learning a foreign language and afraid of waiting, the workers accept to go as tourists. Therefore, in this case, the workers are also partly at fault.

The panel of judges determined that, although in this case, the two defendants had many mitigating circumstances such as honest confessions, partial remediation of consequences... However, the actions of the two defendants had seriously affected the political security situation, order, social safety and the reputation of the country, so they needed to be strictly punished. The panel sentenced Doan Thi Lieu to 42 months in prison, and defendant Ngo Thi Hong Hanh to 24 months in prison, with a suspended sentence.