Three officials sentenced to life imprisonment in case of customs officials colluding with businesses.

After 10 days of appeal hearings, on July 5th, the Ho Chi Minh City High Court announced its verdict in the case of customs officials colluding with businesses to smuggle and misappropriate VAT refund money. Accordingly, the panel of judges rejected all appeals claiming innocence from 32 defendants and rejected requests for reduced sentences from four defendants.

The defendants at the first-instance trial are Dũng (wearing glasses) in the front row, and the two female defendants, Tuyền and Châu.

Previously, a month after the initial 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 Co., Ltd. and Dai Dac Tai Co., Ltd.), and Hua Chau (director of private companies) to life imprisonment for crimes of smuggling, fraud, and bribery.

Thirty-seven other defendants in this case were sentenced to terms ranging from three years in prison (with suspended sentences) to 26 years in prison for various offenses.

Defendant Le Dung.

Subsequently, defendant Nguyen Van Bien (former head of the Khanh Binh border gate customs office, An Giang province) pleaded not guilty to the charge of abusing his position and authority while performing his official duties.

Twenty-five other defendants, all former customs officers from An Giang province and the Saigon Port Customs Branch, Area 4 - Ho Chi Minh City Customs, also submitted requests for a review of this charge.

According to these defendants, they were coerced and manipulated during the investigation. They claimed they followed all import and export procedures as stipulated by the industry and did not collude with businesses to falsify declarations for tax refunds. Defendants Dung and Tuyen pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery and negligence causing serious consequences.

The appellate court ruled that the first-instance judgment convicting defendants Dung, Tuyen, and Hua Chau was correct, convicting the right people for the right crimes, and therefore their appeals claiming innocence were unfounded. Specifically, Tuyen hired someone to create documents for Le Dung to export rice but declared it as cigarettes to embezzle tax refunds, thus constituting the crime of smuggling; she also gave money to customs officials to clear the shipment, thus committing the crime of bribery. Furthermore, Tuyen embezzled tax refunds and profited from smuggling activities...

Regarding the customs defendants' claims of coercion and manipulation during questioning, the panel of judges stated that the lower court had already clarified that this did not occur. Furthermore, while some defendants showed signs of committing other, more serious crimes, the court did not worsen their situation because there were no appeals or objections related to these offenses.

As reported, the defendants exploited the policy of encouraging goods exports and value-added tax (VAT) refunds for businesses, seeking partners to sign fictitious export contracts in order to embezzle VAT refund money. Initially, Tuyen only discussed the matter with Hua Chau and Lam Tuan Phat. But when she learned that the VAT refund procedures were subject to strict scrutiny, Tuyen raised the issue with Dung, the director of a company with 51% state ownership.

With Dung's agreement, Tuyen signed a contract to export 20,000 kg of rice worth 190 million VND at Saigon Port Area IV (Ho Chi Minh City) but declared it as 3,000 cartons of cigarettes worth 23.6 billion VND. Tuyen and her accomplices bribed customs officials to "let it pass."

From May 2011 to September 2013, Dung, acting on behalf of the company, signed hundreds of fictitious contracts to sell cigarettes and food items to Tuyen, who then exported them to Cambodia. The total value was over 1.37 trillion VND, equivalent to 134.5 billion VND in VAT...

This group also bribed customs officers at the Khanh Binh border gate to obtain fraudulent customs documents and declarations, which they then used to apply for tax refunds, embezzling over 80 billion VND.

Subsequently, Tuyen and Dung signed numerous other fictitious contracts worth hundreds of billions of dong to process tax refunds totaling over 40 billion dong, but they were discovered and were unable to obtain the money.

According to the investigation results, Dung received 150 million VND, an SH motorbike, and 20,000 USD from Tuyen. Tuyen, on the other hand, confessed to spending 4 billion VND on a fugitive to give to Bien and his subordinates to falsely sign 92 customs declarations.../.

Thep PLO