Vietnamese ship in distress off Indian coast

A Vietnamese cargo ship with 15 crewmembers on board is seeking help after its steering system broke down, causing it to drift off the Indian coast since last week.

At 12:28 on Tuesday, July 3, the Hai Phong Inmarsat Land Earth Station received a SOS message from the Anh Son saying that the vessel has been in distress since June 26, and was drifting 32 nautical miles off the Indian coast, at latitude 21o 01’ north and longitude 88o 16’ east.

The 4,374 DWT ship, which was carrying wood from the northern port city of Hai Phong to India, said it could get in contact with the mainland only via the Inmarsat-C satellite system.

The ship also reported that it has run out of food and may sink, as it was listing at an angle of 20 degrees after being hit by strong waves.

The station immediately transferred the message to the Vietnam Coastal Information Station, which in turn sent it to the National Committee for Search and Rescue for urgent help.

The committee has contacted vessels operating in the area via radio signals, calling for them to try to help to the distressed ship.

The committee has also contacted Indian authorities and the Vietnamese Embassy in India for assistance.

Communication with the ship is being maintained, the committee said.

The ship is owned by the Anh Son Shipping Trading Company Limited, based in Hai Phong.

Five law firms lose licences

Ha Noi Department of Justice has withdrawn the operating licences of five law firms in the city.

This was because their legal representatives, either chief of administration or director, was found to have violated the regulations of the Ha Noi Lawyers Guild, which had their names removed from its membership list.

The five law firms are the Ngon Lua Viet and Thanh An law offices in Cau Giay District, Van Xuan law office in Ba Dinh District, Bao Chau and Colleagues law office in Hoang Mai District and Ngoc Thanh law office in Thanh Xuan District.

The Ha Noi Lawyers Guild earlier removed 16 lawyers from its membership list for their failure to pay membership fees for two to fived years. They will not be allowed to work in the profession for at least three years.

This is the first time the Ha Noi Lawyers Guild has removed lawyers from their membership list for such reasons.

The expulsions follow repeated reminders to the lawyers and their law firms.

$238,000 blackmailer seized after year of hiding

Police in Hai Duong Province have arrested Nguyen Van Dung, aka Tuan ‘Hai Phong’, who had been hiding after his involvement in extorting US$238,000 from another man in Binh Thuan Province last year.

Dung, who had been wanted by police since mid 2011, was escorted from Hai Duong to Binh Thuan for questioning on Tuesday.

According to the case file, Vo Thi Tuyet, a manager of the Lucky Star Hotel in Xuan Loc District, Dong Nai Province, and her de facto husband, Phan Anh Cuong, engaged themselves in illegal football betting in 2010.

The couple then lost VND1 billion (US$48,000) to another football bettor in Cambodia, simply identified as Ty, but failed to pay the amount.

Due to their conflict, the couple parted later the same year and Cuong returned to his former wife in Binh Thuan’s Phan Thiet. Tuyet tried to get in contact with him but failed to do so.

On May 26, 2011, Tuyet asked Dung, a member of the underground in northern Hai Phong City, to assist her in her scam to extort the amount from Cuong.

A few days later, Dung and four others, Nguyen Van Nghiem, Le Van Hien, Do Trong Thanh and Tran Dang Manh - who was a police major in a district in HCMC - went to Phan Thiet to look for Cuong.
They finally found Cuong and forced him to sign a promissory note stating he owed Tuyet $238,000.

According to the note, Cuong had to hand VND200 million ($9,600) to the gang immediately and would have to pay $10,000 every month to a designated bank account.

On June 27, 2011, Cuong paid VND130 million to the account after reporting the case to police, who later seized Hien and Nghiem when they arrived at a bank in District 12, HCMC to withdraw the money.

Tuyet fled and remained in hiding until February 2012, when she turned herself in to police as the instigator of the extortion scheme, while Dung continued hiding until he was arrested in Hai Duong Province last month.

Binh Thuan police are finalizing their investigation to propose the local prosecutor’s office to bring Tuyet and her three accomplices to trial for “appropriating assets”.

Banker sentenced to death for embezzlement

Le Quang Khai, a 30-year-old teller from the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank), was sentenced to death for embezzlement.

Two other accomplices were subject to life imprisonment by the Hanoi People's Court on July 2.

Khai, in co-operation with two other tellers at Agribank, had taken advantage of their positions to embezzle nearly VND46 billion (US$2.2 million), of which he pocketed VND35 billion (US$1.6 million) for himself to gamble.

Man caught smuggling 19.4kg of gold

A 45-year-old man from the northern province of Hai Duong has been caught transporting 19.4 kilogrames of gold jewellery by car on the way from Ha Noi to Thanh Hoa, Thanh Hoa police said yesterday, July 3.

Do Van Truong, who was travelling with three other people in his car, failed to present any legal proof of the jewellery's origin. The case is under investigation.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre