What did the former Director of the Consular Department say about receiving bribes in the 'rescue flight' case?

According to the indictment of the Supreme People's Procuracy, from April 2020 to January 2022, the Consular Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) gathered and proposed to the Government leaders to approve the organization of 772 flights to bring citizens from abroad back to the country, including 400 rescue flights and 372 combo flights. In her position, defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan accepted bribes during the licensing process for "rescue flights".

Defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan was then the Director of the Department, assigned to manage and be in charge of all work of the Consular Department, review the list of businesses conducting flights, and directly report to defendant To Anh Dung, then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, to approve and sign the document proposing for businesses to conduct "rescue flights".

From May 2020 to January 2022, 8 individuals representing businesses asked and were assisted by defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan in granting flight permits. During this time, defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan received money from business representatives many times.

Defendant To Anh Dung and defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan.

The first time, around May 2020, defendant Hoang Dieu Mo (Director of An Binh Company Limited) was introduced by defendant To Anh Dung to meet and defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan agreed to help An Binh Company Limited group get licensed for 66 flights.

After that, the defendant Hoang Dieu Mo gave the defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan 11 times with a total amount of 13.2 billion VND. During the investigation, Nguyen Thi Huong Lan said that she only received 200 million VND once. However, based on the testimony of the defendant To Anh Dung, the account statement and related evidence and documents, the prosecution agency determined that the defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan received a bribe of 13.2 billion VND from the defendant Hoang Dieu Mo.

In June 2021, defendant Nguyen Thi Tuong Vy (Director of ATA Company) raised the issue and defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan agreed to facilitate the licensing of 32 "rescue flights". Defendant Nguyen Thi Tuong Vy confessed that she had bribed defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan 4 times, totaling 300 million VND and 85,000 USD.

Regarding the testimony of defendant Nguyen Thi Tuong Vy, defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan did not admit and said that she only received some gifts such as: handbags, hats, flower pots and 50 million VND given by defendant Nguyen Thi Tuong Vy on the occasion of the establishment of the Consular Department. And this amount of money was used for the general fund of the Consular Department.

During the investigation, the investigation agency had sufficient evidence and documents related to the fact that defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan had received bribes from defendant Nguyen Thi Tuong Vy 4 times.

The third person who bribed defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan was defendant Le Van Nghia (Director of Nhat Minh Company). Defendant Le Van Nghia’s business group was helped by defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan to license 18 “rescue flights”, so they bribed Nguyen Thi Huong Lan twice with the amount of 20,000 USD.

Another defendant, Nguyen Thi Thanh Hang (Deputy Director of Bluesky Company), also met and discussed with defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan and got her to agree to help license 109 “rescue flights”. In return, defendant Nguyen Thi Thanh Hang bribed defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan 8 times, totaling 5.9 billion VND.

The indictment determined that, during the process of licensing “rescue flights”, from December 2020 to January 2022, former Director of the Consular Department Nguyen Thi Huong Lan received bribes 32 times from 8 individuals representing businesses with a total amount of more than 25 billion VND (including 20.2 billion VND and 210,000 USD). On April 17, the family of defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan paid 900 million VND to remedy the consequences.