Sentenced to 2 years in prison for organizing illegal immigration

(Baonghean.vn) - Although not permitted by the authorities, Trung and other individuals organized to bring people to the US under the guise of tourism, but in reality, to stay illegally to work.

On the morning of November 28, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Le Quang Trung (born 1984, residing in Quynh Long commune, Quynh Luu district) prosecuted for the crime of "organizing others to flee abroad".

Defendant Le Quang Trung in court. Photo: Phuong Thao

According to the indictment, Le Quang Trung and Tran Thi Le were related by marriage, so around the beginning of May 2016, Trung used the social networking service Zalo to call Le from American Samoa. Through the exchange, Trung asked Le to find Trung a few Vietnamese people to work in Samoa, where Trung was living.

Trung told Le that the cost of sending Vietnamese workers to Samoa was 10,000 USD/person. Once they arrived, Trung would arrange jobs in agriculture or restaurants, with starting salaries of 700 to 800 USD/month, then increasing to 1,000 USD/month. Trung told Le that he would collect 12,000 USD from each worker.

Based on the information Trung provided, Le contacted Nguyen Thi Thuy, asking her to find someone. Thuy then contacted Truong Van Tan (born in 1993, residing in Hop Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district) and Nguyen Minh Duc (born in 1993, residing in Dien Hanh commune, Dien Chau district). Le and Thuy went to Tan and Duc's house to advise on the contents as Trung had discussed. In addition, Le also provided additional information that he would be granted a green card to legally travel to Samoa, the fee was 12,500 USD. Duc and Tan agreed to complete the procedures to go to American Samoa to work.

Thuy was the one who received the deposit and documents, then transferred them to Le. Le transferred Tan and Duc's documents to Trung via the social network Zalo, from here Trung transferred the invitation letter, visa procedures, and plane tickets via post to Le's address. Le gave these documents to Duc and Tan to go to Samoa to work under the guise of tourism to visit relatives. After that, Tan and Duc's families paid an additional 23,000 USD to Thuy and Le.

On June 10, 2016, Le and her husband went to Hanoi for a medical examination and were also present at the airport to see Tan and Duc off. Here, Tan and Duc continued to pay an additional 1.5 million VND each to complete the exit procedures quickly. After Duc and Tan arrived in Samoa, Trung found them jobs at a vegetable farm owned by a Chinese boss, with a salary of 10 USD/day. Due to low wages and living and working conditions not as previously agreed, Duc and Tan called their families to send money and bought their own plane tickets to return to Vietnam on July 25, 2016.

According to the investigation results, Tran Thi Le benefited 2,000 USD from sending people to work abroad, Nguyen Thi Thuy received 20 million VND when collecting money from Duc and Tan. Le Quang Trung benefited 1,000 USD.

During the investigation, Thuy proactively returned 10 million VND to Duc and Tan each. Tran Thi Le and Nguyen Thi Hue (Trung's biological mothers) returned 2,000 USD to Tan and Duc each. The remaining amount was transferred to Trung's wife's account and then directly to a man named Gamt Satele (a broker in Samoa), and is currently unrecoverable.

The actions of Le and Thuy were judged in the judgment No. 34/2017/HSST dated May 3, 2017 of the People's Court of Nghe An province. For Le Quang Trung, the panel sentenced the defendant to 2 years in prison for the crime of "organizing others to flee abroad".

Phuong Thao