VietNamNet Bridge – Most of the luxury cars have been imported to Vietnam as the assets of Viet Kieu repatriates. There are the rings that bring the cars to Vietnam under forged documents.

Kim Q, the owner of a nail shop in Portland City of Oregon State in the US, said that she was once asked to join a ring which created forged documents about Viet Kieu repatriates and brought luxury cars to Vietnam.

Q said that her family once needed a big sum of money to start up a business. HS, a Vietnamese in Australia then called her, saying that she could earn some money by “lending the names and information.”

The man said that if she just left Vietnam and still did not have the US citizenship, she would need to show the passport granted by the Vietnamese administration and the “green card.”

After following necessary procedures, a company in HCM City would contact Q and buy her an air ticket for her flight to Vietnam, where she would stay for four weeks.

After arriving in the Tan Son Nhat airport, Q would receive an advance of $2,000 on fee from the company. If the cars can safely come to Vietnam, the company would pay the remaining $6,000.

However, Q then decided not to join the ring, after she called a relative in HCM City to consult with him about the deal. She was told that the police were making investigation on similar cases.

Q was not the only one who was asked to “lend the name” to help bring luxury cars to Vietnam. Thanh Nien newspaper reported that the General Department of Customs discovered some abnormal things with the Viet Kieu returning to Vietnam.

The abnormal things were that though the Viet Kieu had modest income, they always brought with themselves to Vietnam very expensive cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The police have also requested the General Department of Customs to provide relating documents to clarify the car imports that it believed were smuggled to Vietnam with the declarations that these were the assets of Viet Kieu repatriates.

Luxury cars arrive in Vietnam in masses

Under the Circular No. 118 of the Ministry of Finance, every Viet Kieu repatriate can bring with himself to Vietnam a car that he is using. The car would be exempted from the import tax and the VAT.

The preferences, plus the tightening over the car imports both have prompted people to forge documents of Viet Kieu repatriates to evade tax when bringing luxury cars to Vietnam.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has noted the sharp increase in the number of luxury cars imported to Vietnam recently. In the first 11 months of 2012 alone, 70 luxury cars of Viet Kieu repatriates were allowed to enter Vietnam, the number that 4.7 times higher than that in 2011 and six times than that in 2010.

The ministry has also pointed out that 90 percent of the Viet Kieu repatriates’ imported cars are luxurious models with the brands of Lexus, Porsche, BMW, Audi, Land Rover. Especially, these also included super cars such as Bugatti Veyron, Bentley Continental Flying Spur.

Opinions from the well informed circle said that of the 70 super cars present in Vietnam, only two have been imported through the official channel, while the others have been declared as the assets of Viet Kieu repatriates.

Lao Dong