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Tien Giang rejects "$10 billion aid package"

$10 billion aid package is just a scam

Old traps

The fact that Tien Giang provincial authorities have refused the $10 billion aid package offered by Diamond Access represented by a Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese), showed that traps have always been laid.

Since the beginning of the second quarter, provincial authorities have repeatedly warned businesses against the swindling made by Viet Kieu, foreign businessmen or institutions.

In May 2013, the Dak Lak provincial people’s committee sent a dispatch to relevant agencies and businesses in the locality, recommending being cautious when working with the individuals and institutions who offer foreign loans.

The individuals or institutions may introduce themselves as the representatives of international financial groups or those authorized to work out with the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank of Vietnam, people’s committees and state owned enterprises--on the preferential loans to implement projects.

The individuals and institutions don’t have a clear legal status, cannot prove their financial capability, or the origin of the capital.

In June 2013, the Hoi An City People’s Committee also released a document with similar warnings. Prior to that, Quang Nam province received the representatives from the “World Green Environment Organization” who offered a non-refundable aid package worth VND1.114 trillion to fund the afforestation project in the Cu Lao Cham biosphere reserve.

In order to receive the aid, the local authorities were told to provide the documents about the project and sign a contract to commit to pay a commission of VND48 billion to intermediaries.

The provincial police then affirmed that there was no organization named “World Green Environment Organization.”

In recent months, a rumor has been spread out that non-government organizations have poured their money into Vietnam to fund the land clearance and afforestation projects in the mountainous provinces – a part of the national programs on hunger elimination and poverty reduction.

The Ministry of Finance also reportedly received the offers for loans for the afforestation projects. However, it stated that the government of Vietnam did not have any projects like this and it did not allocate budgets for the programs.

New victims

According to Lawyer Truong Thanh Duc, Chair of the Legal Department of the Vietnam Banking Association, the same swindling method has been used for the last many years.

The criminals offer preferential loans to Vietnamese businesses and agencies and they ask the government agencies’ or banks’ guarantee in return for the loans. In other cases, the criminals may ask the borrowers to commit to give “commissions” for the brokerage, or give money to them in advance to “lobby” for the projects.

However, though businesses have been warned about the swindling, they still sprung the traps.

In November 2011, the Hanoi Police arrested Nguyen Thi Hien, 56, who introduced herself as the donor for humanitarian projects. Hien told the victims that she could access the huge capital sources from non-government organizations to allocate to the central provinces, which suffered heavily from the wars.

In return for the promised huge loans, borrowers had to pay hundreds of millions of dong to Hien for the projects’ programming.

The criminals even tried to cheat the State Bank of Vietnam by offering very attractive loans worth tens of billions of dollars with very low interest rates and the long grace period of up to 40 years.

Mai Chi