The "Tycoon and the Beautiful Woman" case was among the most talked-about cases of 2017.

The arrest of Dinh La Thang for wrongdoings during his time as Chairman of the Board of Directors of PVN, Trinh Xuan Thanh's return to Vietnam to surrender after a period of fleeing abroad for embezzling 18 billion VND, and the wanted status of tycoon Vu "Nhom"... topped the list of most-watched cases in 2017.

The most talked-about cases of 2017

On May 7, 2017, Mr. Dinh La Thang, who was then serving as Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, was disciplined with a warning by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and removed from his position as a member of the Politburo.

On May 10th, the Politburo dismissed Mr. Thang from his position as Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee. Subsequently, Mr. Thang was temporarily suspended from his position as a National Assembly delegate and suspended from Party activities. On December 8th, he was prosecuted and taken into temporary custody.

On December 26, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued an indictment prosecuting Mr. Thang for intentionally violating regulations in the case involving the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) and its subsidiary PVC.

A day later, on December 27th, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued another indictment prosecuting Mr. Thang for intentionally violating regulations in the case of PVN's loss of 800 billion VND in investment in OceanBank.

The Hanoi City People's Court is expected to try Mr. Thang in connection with the PVN and PVC case on January 8th.

Portrait of Trinh Xuan Thanh

Having gained notoriety since holding the position of Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Hau Giang province with a Lexus bearing a blue license plate in mid-2016, Trinh Xuan Thanh was expelled from the Party and then unexpectedly fled abroad after submitting an application for medical treatment.

The investigating agency has initiated legal proceedings and issued an international arrest warrant for Trinh Xuan Thanh for intentional wrongdoing stemming from violations committed while Thanh was chairman of the board of directors of the PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation (PVC).

In July 2017, Trinh Xuan Thanh returned to Vietnam and surrendered.

Following the investigation, on December 26th and 27th, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued two indictments against Trinh Xuan Thanh.

In the case involving the Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation (PVN) and its subsidiary PVC (along with Mr. Dinh La Thang), Thanh was accused of embezzling 14 billion VND. In the case involving the Vietnam Electricity and Petroleum Real Estate Joint Stock Company (PVP Land), Trinh Xuan Thanh was accused of embezzling 4 billion VND.

The case of Phan Van Anh Vu (commonly known as Vu "Nhôm", 42 years old) - known by the nickname "mafia" in Da Nang - being prosecuted for intentionally disclosing state secrets in mid-December 2017 has attracted significant public attention.

Mr. Phan Van Anh Vu (commonly known as Vu "Aluminum")

Notably, before fleeing, Vu "Nhom" had attempted to transfer many assets to others, but Da Nang authorities requested a temporary halt to all transactions related to Vu "Nhom"'s assets. An international arrest warrant was also issued for Vu "Nhom".

Le Lam Hung was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Claiming he needed money to pay off debts from gambling and football betting, Le Lam Hung – an electrical engineer working at the Thermal Power Project Management Board 3 – planned to rob a bank.

On the afternoon of April 26, Hung, wearing protective gear and carrying a BB gun, stormed into a Vietcombank branch in Duyen Hai district, Tra Vinh province, threatened the staff, stole nearly 1.6 billion VND and 35,900 USD, and then escaped.

After 10 days of investigation, Hung was arrested on May 6th. Subsequently, the Tra Vinh Provincial People's Court tried him and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

The case between Truong Ho Phuong Nga and Cao Toan My has been temporarily suspended pending the results of further investigation.

The case attracted significant public attention when Truong Ho Phuong Nga, a former Miss Vietnam in Russia, was accused by her former lover, businessman Cao Toan My, of defrauding her of 16.5 billion VND. The trial of the beauty queen in June 2017 featured intense debate between the two sides.

While the American man accused Russia of fraud, the former beauty queen claimed that the money was given by the American man to Russia as part of a romantic agreement between the two.

Faced with new evidence emerging in the case, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court decided to postpone the trial, return the case file for further investigation, and change the preventive measure, allowing Phuong Nga to be released on bail.

After receiving the case file, the investigating agency decided to temporarily suspend the charges against Phuong Nga pending the results of the forensic examination and verification of evidence.

The case of smuggling counterfeit cancer drugs at VN Pharma Company, involving General Director Nguyen Minh Hung and his accomplices, which was brought to trial by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court, has left many unanswered questions.

Was there irregularity in the Ministry of Health's "rapid" licensing of smuggled drug shipments by VN Pharma? Why wasn't the more than 15 billion VND in commissions that VN Pharma paid to doctors clarified? Did the case allow some perpetrators and crimes to go unpunished?

Mr. Nguyen Minh Hung cried in court.

After the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced General Director Nguyen Minh Hung to 12 years in prison, the Ho Chi Minh City High People's Court heard the appeal, overturned the verdict for further investigation, and ordered Hung's immediate detention at the court (Hung had previously been released on bail).

This particularly serious case, involving many banking tycoons such as Ha Van Tham, Pham Cong Danh, and Hua Thi Phan, was also the reason why a series of former leaders of the Vietnam National Petroleum Group (PVN), such as Dinh La Thang, Trinh Xuan Thanh, and Phung Dinh Thuc, were prosecuted and arrested, after PVN lost approximately 800 billion VND when investing in OceanBank.

The individuals involved in the Ocean Bank mega-case.

In this case, Nguyen Xuan Son, former General Director of OceanBank, gave numerous testimonies regarding the financial transactions between the bank and PVN leaders. Nguyen Xuan Son was sentenced to death by the Hanoi City People's Court, while Ha Van Tham was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Portraits of the two death row inmates who escaped from T16 prison.

Despite being shackled in solitary confinement, on the night of September 10th, two death row inmates, Le Van Tho (aka Tho "Sut") and Nguyen Van Tinh, managed to dig through the wall and escape, then used ropes to climb over the wall and get out of the T16 detention center of the Ministry of Public Security in Hanoi, causing widespread concern.

After more than five days and nights of intense searching, on the evening of September 16th, the police arrested Tho "Sut" while he was in Nam Sach district, Hai Duong province (near his hometown). In the early morning of September 17th, Nguyen Van Tinh was also arrested at a drug hotspot near Hang Kia - Pa Co, Mai Chau district, Hoa Binh province.

The investigating agency subsequently initiated a criminal case and charged three T16 prison officials with negligence resulting in the escape of a detainee.

Ms. Pham Thi Xuan (the child's grandmother)

The news that a 23-day-old baby girl was abducted from her grandmother's arms by two strangers who broke into her home has caused widespread concern. The incident shocked the public even more when, two days later, the baby girl's body was discovered by a scrap collector at a garbage dump in Bim Son town, Thanh Hoa province.

After investigation, the police determined that there was no kidnapping and murder of the child, and that the suspect in the girl's death was Pham Thi Xuan (65 years old, the child's grandmother).

After being charged and arrested, Ms. Xuan confessed that she had accidentally killed her grandchild and therefore staged a fake crime scene and falsely reported that her grandchild had been kidnapped.

On December 16th, a sanitation worker in Hoa Lan 1 neighborhood, Thuan Giao ward, Thuan An town, Binh Duong province, was horrified to discover a plastic bag containing a man's head in a trash can.

Later, authorities searched and discovered other body parts of the man and identified the victim as Tran Thanh Tu, 37 years old, from Soc Trang province.

The investigating agency quickly gathered evidence and identified the main suspect as Hang Thi Hong Diem, 32 years old, Mr. Tu's wife.

The suspect in the case is Hang Thi Hong Diem - Mr. Tu's wife.

After her arrest, Diem confessed to killing Mr. Tu on the night of December 15th when he returned home drunk and the couple had an argument.

According to Diễm's testimony, Mr. Tú attacked her with a knife, and she managed to snatch the knife and stab him to death. Afterwards, Diễm devised a plan to dispose of her husband's body, so she decapitated him and other body parts, discarding them in various locations.

According to Tuoi Tre newspaper