Prosecuted 16 defendants in the invoice trading ring, tax evasion of more than 3,200 billion VND

On the afternoon of July 16, the Hoa Binh Provincial Police announced that the Investigation Security Agency of the Provincial Police had just prosecuted 16 defendants in a ring of illegal invoice trading and tax evasion of more than VND 3,200 billion that occurred in Hoa Binh province, Thai Binh province and other provinces and cities since 2020.

Specifically, the Investigation Agency of Hoa Binh Provincial Police has issued Decisions to prosecute the defendants including Le Thanh Phuc (born in 1996), Nguyen Hoai Son (born in 1997), Duong Trung Truc (born in 1999), Hong Minh Dat (born in 1995), Tuong Thanh Tri (born in 1999), all residing in Chau Thanh district, Dong Thap province and 11 other defendants to investigate the acts of "Tax evasion" and "Illegal trading of invoices" stipulated in Article 200 and Article 203 of the Penal Code.

From 2020 to September 2023, the defendants established 64 "ghost" companies to illegally issue 140,024 electronic invoices, including 76,561 invoices issued to nearly 9,000 agencies, businesses, organizations and individuals nationwide with a total amount of goods and services recorded on the invoices of more than 3,200 billion VND.

The Investigation Security Agency of Hoa Binh Provincial Police has seized many documents and evidence of the case and continues to coordinate with relevant units to urgently investigate and expand.

"This is the biggest case of illegal invoice trading and tax evasion in Hoa Binh province to date," said Hoa Binh Provincial Police.

According to the Investigation Agency, the defendants have a specific division of tasks among the members of the group. Communication between the members of the group is mainly through Zalo, Viber, Telegram applications and rarely meets in person, making it difficult to verify the subjects involved.

When a defendant's illegal invoice trading is discovered, the remaining defendants will retrieve messages or destroy evidence such as electronic devices, making it difficult to identify other defendants in the invoice trading group.

The above defendants took advantage of the State's regulations on online business registration, not having to go directly to the management agencies to complete business establishment procedures but only needing to submit documents via the internet.

Therefore, they used other people's identity cards or fake identity cards to register to establish businesses; issue and use electronic invoices and State regulations on value added tax (VAT) deduction to illegally buy and sell invoices and evade taxes.

To conceal their crimes, the defendants used many spam phone numbers to contact and opened many bank accounts to conduct transactions. In addition, they also hired others to open accounts to use for money transfers, making it difficult to verify and arrest.

Currently, the case is under further investigation and expansion.