Former police officer instructs business director to make false declaration

Mr. Thong, 49 years old, is the only person in the "rescue flight" phase 2 case that the Ministry of Public Security's Security Investigation Agency has proposed to prosecute for concealing a criminal. The remaining 16 people have been proposed to prosecute for bribery, bribery acceptance and abuse of power while performing official duties.

According to the investigation, Mr. Thong has known Tran Minh Tuan (Director of Thai Hoa Construction Joint Stock Company) since 2009 and has a working relationship. In 2021, Mr. Thong was boasted by Tuan about his relationship with 4 ministries (Foreign Affairs, Health, Transport, National Defense) to help organize a flight to bring Vietnamese citizens back home to avoid Covid-19.

However, the problem Tuan encountered was with the Immigration Department, Ministry of Public Security, so he asked Mr. Thong to help resolve it. Mr. Thong then asked the Immigration Department to check and issue a document soon agreeing to Tuan's company to organize the flight. With the approval of this department, Tuan's company successfully organized the transportation of workers from Taiwan to Hai Duong for quarantine.

From July 2021 to September 2021, Tuan repeatedly texted Thong photos of documents on policies and plans for organizing flights via the social network Zalo. Among them were two documents from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stamped "Confidential".

As before, Tuan insisted that he could "handle it" so he only asked Mr. Thong to intervene with the Immigration Department. At this time, everything was stalled when Mr. Thong could not resolve it, and Mr. Tuan had a conflict with his partner so he had to stop making flights.

In June 2022, when the Ministry of Public Security's Security Investigation Agency was investigating the "rescue flight" case, Mr. Tuan told Mr. Thong and asked for help. Authorities alleged that, due to their discussions while repatriating citizens, Mr. Thong knew that Mr. Tuan was being investigated for bribery to organize the flight.

On July 19, 2022, the Ministry of Public Security's Security Investigation Agency summoned Tuan to work the next day. That same evening, Mr. Thong discussed with Tuan in Hanoi. Immediately afterwards, Mr. Thong called the Security Investigation Agency to introduce himself as "working at the Central Public Security Party Inspection Committee" to request the investigator to postpone Tuan's work time to another day because he was on a business trip to Nghe An and could not return in time.

Ten days later, Mr. Thong met Tuan and some other people at a restaurant near the Ministry of Public Security headquarters. The meeting was to advise Tuan on how to report to the Security Agency about the case in a favorable way. This meeting was also attended by another person.

At the meeting, Mr. Tuan admitted that he had taken more than 10 billion VND from Pham Bich Hang (Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vinamichi Joint Stock Company, a defendant in the first phase of the "rescue flight" case) to bribe authorities. The money was also used to apply for procedures to organize flights for some of Hang's businesses.

Mr. Tuan asked Thong to guide him on how to make a favorable statement to the investigation agency about this matter. Everyone agreed that Tuan should not declare the amount of money he received from Hang to give bribes. Mr. Tuan should falsely declare that he had "returned all of it to Hang in cash", and for other matters, he should declare that he "didn't know, would think about it and answer later", the investigation conclusion stated.

On August 3, 2022, Tuan and Pham Ba Son (freelance workers, tried in phase one) went to the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Security Department to work and made false statements about their actions as instructed. Two months later, Tuan fled his residence, causing the police to be unable to execute the decision to prosecute and detain him.

On November 25, 2022, Tuan was arrested in Thua Thien Hue and then continued to make false statements to conceal his crimes. This caused great difficulties and obstacles to the investigation and clarification of the crimes of Tuan and his accomplices.

The investigation agency assessed that, although he did not make any prior promises, Thong knew clearly about Tuan's criminal behavior but still instructed him to make false statements to cover it up, in order to escape punishment. Thong's behavior was to conceal the crime and hindered the investigation and handling of the case.

In phase 1, Tuan was sentenced to 16 years in prison for fraud and 2 years in prison for bribery.,total of 18 years in prison. Tuan was not prosecuted for any additional crimes in the second phase of the case.