Uphold 3 life sentences in customs case of assisting businesses

After 10 days of appeal trial, on July 5, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City announced the verdict in the case of customs officers assisting smuggling enterprises in appropriating VAT refunds. Accordingly, the panel of judges rejected all appeals of 32 defendants and requested a reduction of sentence for four defendants.

The defendants at the first instance trial, the leading defendant was Dung (wearing glasses), two female defendants were Tuyen and Chau.

A month earlier, at the first instance trial, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced Le Dung (former director of Saigon Food Technology Joint Stock Company), Tran Thi Bich Tuyen (former director of Lam Tuyen Company Limited and Dai Dac Tai Company Limited), and Hua Chau (director of private companies) to life in prison for smuggling, fraud, bribery, etc.

The other 37 defendants in the case were sentenced to terms ranging from three years in prison, suspended, to 26 years in prison, for various crimes.

Defendant Le Dung.

Then, defendant Nguyen Van Bien (former head of Khanh Binh Border Gate Customs, An Giang) cried out for injustice about being convicted of abusing his position and power while performing official duties.

25 other defendants, former customs officers of An Giang and Saigon Port Customs Branch Region 4 - Ho Chi Minh City Customs, also submitted a petition to review this charge.

According to these defendants, during the investigation, they were forced to confess and were prompted to confess. The defendants said that they had followed the import-export procedures according to the regulations of the industry and had not colluded with the business to sign false declarations to request tax refunds. As for the defendants Dung and Tuyen, they claimed to be innocent of the charges of bribery and lack of responsibility causing serious consequences...

The appellate panel concluded that the first instance verdict in sentencing the defendants Dung, Tuyen, and Hua Chau was correct, and there was no injustice, so the appeal was unfounded. Specifically, Tuyen also hired someone to prepare documents for Le Dung to export rice but declared it as cigarettes to appropriate tax refunds, thus constituting the crime of smuggling; giving money to customs to clear the shipment constituted the crime of bribery. In addition, Tuyen appropriated tax refunds and profited from smuggling proceeds...

Regarding the customs defendants’ claims that they were forced to give confessions or were prompted to give confessions, the panel of judges said that the first instance court had made it clear that this did not happen. In addition, there were defendants who showed signs of committing other more serious crimes, but the court did not worsen the defendants’ situation because there were no related appeals or protests.

As reported, the defendants took advantage of the policy of encouraging the export of goods and refunding value added tax (VAT) for businesses, finding partners to sign fake export contracts to appropriate tax refunds. Initially, Tuyen only discussed with Hua Chau and Lam Tuan Phat. But when he learned that the tax refund procedure was being closely inspected, Tuyen raised the issue with Dung, the director of a 51% state-owned enterprise.

With Dung's consent, Tuyen signed a contract to export 20,000 kg of rice worth 190 million VND at Saigon Port, Region IV (HCMC) but declared it as 3,000 cartons of cigarettes worth 23.6 billion VND. Tuyen and his accomplices paid customs officers to "let it go".

From May 2011 to September 2013, Dung signed hundreds of fake contracts in the company's name to sell cigarettes and food products to Tuyen and then exported them to Cambodia. The total value was more than 1,370 billion VND, equivalent to 134.5 billion VND in VAT...

This group also "bribed" customs officers at Khanh Binh border gate to get fake documents and customs declarations, then applied for tax refunds, embezzling more than 80 billion VND.

After that, Tuyen and Dung signed many other fake contracts worth hundreds of billions of dong to complete tax refund procedures of more than 40 billion dong, but were discovered and have not yet received the money.

According to the investigation results, Dung received 150 million VND, a SH motorbike and 20,000 USD from Tuyen. Tuyen also confessed to having given 4 billion VND to a fugitive to give to Bien and his subordinates to sign 92 fake customs declarations.../.

According to PLO