"Gutting" Nhat Tan Bridge project, 4 young engineers sentenced to prison

The defendants together stole 43 steel sheet piles used to prevent landslides at the Nhat Tan bridge foundation pit and sold them for 320 million VND.

On July 15, the Hanoi People's Court brought to trial 4 engineers and 1 driver in the case of "embezzling" the Nhat Tan Bridge project. These 5 defendants include 4 engineers: Nguyen Huy Binh (28 years old), Pham Van Huy (29 years old), Do Thanh Phuc (28 years old), Doan Quang Hung (26 years old) and driver Nguyen Huy Dinh (33 years old) were prosecuted for the same crime of "Abuse of trust to appropriate property". The defendants together stole 43 steel sheet piles used to prevent landslides at the Nhat Tan Bridge foundation pit and sold them for 320 million VND.

According to the indictment, Binh, Huy, Phuc and Hung are all engineers of Sumitomo Mitsui Company (Japan). Hung worked at package 2 of the Ring Road 3 project, the other three worked at package 1 of the Nhat Tan Bridge project.

The defendants are young engineers (photo: Nguyen Quyet/Nguoi lao dong)

During the construction of Nhat Tan Bridge, Sumitomo Mitsui Company hired Viet Xay Construction and Trading Company Limited to transport steel sheet piles used to prevent landslides on the roadbed around the bridge pier foundation pit. Viet Xay Company assigned Dinh to drive a crane truck to transport steel sheet piles according to the contract.

In August 2012, at the Nhat Tan Bridge project, Phuc and Huy, when counting the number of steel sheet piles, found that there were 5 excess steel piles, so they discussed selling them secretly. Knowing that Binh was assigned to transfer 90 steel sheet piles from package 2 of the Ring Road 3 project to package 1 of the Nhat Tan Bridge project, Phuc and Huy discussed with Binh: on the way to sell 5 steel piles, Phuc and Huy would compensate Binh with 5 excess steel sheet piles at the destination. Binh agreed to this plan.

At around 9:00 p.m. on August 20, 2012, Binh and Dinh drove a car to the steel sheet pile yard to receive 29 piles. On the way back, the two went to a scrap metal shop, lied that the company was liquidating goods and sold 5 steel sheet piles for nearly 50 million VND. The transaction was successful, Dinh received 10 million VND, Huy and Phuc divided 8 million VND, and Binh kept the rest. Seeing that the theft was easy, the four defendants asked Hung to carry out 2 more cases. In total, Binh and his four accomplices sold 43 steel sheet piles, earning more than 320 million VND.

At the trial, all five defendants confessed to their crimes. The jury found that the defendants had violated the company's property, with Binh committing the crime multiple times and receiving the highest sentence of 3 years in prison, and Dinh receiving 2 years and 6 months in prison. Hung, Phuc, and Huy were given suspended sentences ranging from 12 months to 15 months./.

According to (vov.vn) - LT