VietNamNet Bridge – Forty three defendants, including an unprecedented number of 31 customs officials of the Mekong Delta’s An Giang Province and HCM City, went on trial yesterday (June 8) on suspicion of appropriating hundreds of billion dong from the State.

Illustrative image -- File photo

Twenty nine of the customs officials are accused of abusing their official power and two former customs officers are accused of aggravated negligence.

In all 46 suspects were ordered to stand trial under the indictment issued by the Supreme People’s Procuracy of Viet Nam, but three escaped.

The alleged ringleader, Tran Thi Bich Tuyen, 35, former director of Dai Dac Tai Co Ltd., stands accused of smuggling, appropriating property and giving bribes.

Le Dung, 62, former director of Sai Gon Industrial Foodstuffs Joint Stock Company, is accused of smuggling, cheating, appropriating property and abusing his position.

Vo Van An, former deputy director of Sai Gon Industrial Foodstuffs Joint Stock Company, stands accused of aggravated negligence.

According to the indictment, the suspects encouraged the export of goods on which exporters get a value-added tax (VAT) refund. Tuyen then conspired with other suspects to appropriate the tax refund.

Between May 2011 and September 2013, according to the indictment, Dung signed 145 fake contracts to sell tobacco and food to Tuyen, valued at over VND1.3 trillion (US$61.6 million).

Tuyen and Dung colluded with customs officials of Khanh Binh Border Gate in An Giang Province to legalise their fake documents and then submitted them to the HCM City’s Tax Division for a refund. The suspects got VND80 billion ($3.6 million) in tax refunds.

Their scheme was discovered in September 2013 when a team of the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Department under the General Department of Viet Nam Customs checked and found 20 tonnes of rice, worth VND190 million ($8,500) in two containers destined for export to Cambodia at the Sai Gon Port, instead of 3,000 packages of tobacco worth up to VND24 billion (over $1 million) as the customs declaration said.

Sentences for the suspects will be handed down on June 28 at the People’s Court of HCM City, chaired by Judge Pham Luong Toan.

VNS