"Unwritten rules" of the Director of Vietnam Register

The actions of Mr. Ha (52 years old, former Director of the Vietnam Register) and his accomplices are stated in the indictment that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Procuracy has just completed. In which, Mr. Ha and Tran Anh Quan (former acting Head of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Department) were prosecuted for bribery.

As Ha's predecessor, Mr. Tran Ky Hinh was prosecuted for bribery and abuse of position and power while performing official duties.

According to the indictment, the Vehicle Inspection Department (VAR, under the Vietnam Register) is responsible for carrying out design appraisals and acceptance tests for the modification of motor vehicles and specialized motorbikes in circulation. The defendants, who are leaders and inspectors of VAR, took advantage of their positions to not properly follow the appraisal and inspection procedures, ignore errors in design documents, and issue design appraisal certificates in violation of regulations in order to receive bribes from companies of VND1.5 - 3 million per document.

Around March 2019, Tran Anh Quan was appointed as acting Head of the VAR Department. 12 inspectors assigned to review design documents later met with Quan to report on receiving bribes from design companies during the document review process.

Quan then agreed with the inspectors - every month, Quan would receive 700,000 VND/file (including the part that Quan would receive and use for diplomatic reception, divided among the department leaders Tran Ky Hinh and Dang Viet Ha). The deputy heads of the VAR department would each receive 100,000 VND/file; the office staff would each receive 50,000 VND/file.

Every month, when receiving bribes from design companies, the inspectors would calculate, count the number of documents and divide the money. After receiving the money, Quan continued to divide it to Tran Ky Hinh 60 million VND/month and Dang Viet Ha 20 million VND/month.

Summon the entire "apparatus" to ensure the interests of the director

In August 2021, when Mr. Hinh retired, Mr. Dang Viet Ha was appointed as the director of the department. Authorities determined that in a meeting with the VAR department leader, Mr. Ha requested an accurate report of the design appraisal records, "to ensure that Ha's interests are the highest". Quan and the participants in the meeting all understood that when receiving money during the design appraisal process, the highest percentage must be given to Ha.

Under Ha's direction, Quan was forced to consult with his deputies and summon the inspectors to agree on how to divide the money. Accordingly, the money division ratio was finalized as follows: Ha received 400,000 VND/file, Quan 300,000 VND/file, the deputy heads of departments each received 100,000 VND/file, put 140,000 VND/file into the diplomatic fund, and the office staff each received 40,000 VND/file.

According to the above policy, every month (from the 1st to the 10th), after receiving money from the inspector, Quan recalculated the number of documents, put the corresponding money in an envelope and gave it to Ha at the office. By October 2022, the police discovered and handled violations at the inspection units, so the defendants did not commit any more violations.

By December 2022, fearing that the police would discover the violations that occurred at the Vietnam Register, Ha returned 5 billion VND to Quan. When the police investigated, Mr. Ha feared that the violations would be discovered, so he gave 100,000 USD to Nguyen Van Chung to help, find information about the investigation results and "run" for himself to avoid being prosecuted. Chung received the money but did not use it and instead appropriated it. On August 29, 2023, Mr. Ha reported Chung's actions.

During the investigation, Quan confessed to his actions and said he personally benefited more than 11.5 billion VND, giving Mr. Hinh 1.68 billion VND and Ha more than 5.9 billion VND.

In addition to the money received from the VAR room, from August 2021 to September 2022, Mr. Ha and Hinh also received bribes from a number of inspection centers.

The prosecution agency determined that former Director Ha must bear criminal responsibility for the total bribe amount of more than 40 billion VND. Of which, the units of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Department (from August 2021 to September 2022) received more than 31 billion VND; 4 inspection centers (Block V, under the Department in Ho Chi Minh City from April 1 to November 2022) received more than 7.6 billion VND; 5 inspection centers of Block V in Hanoi received 780 million VND and the bribe money of the Directors of the Inspection Centers of Block D was 680 million VND.

Mr. Ha was accused of benefiting nearly 8.8 billion VND and 13,000 USD, Mr. Hinh received bribes totaling more than 6.5 billion VND and 23,000 USD.

During the investigation, the two former directors and most of the defendants confessed their wrongdoings and showed remorse. Some defendants returned part of their illegal profits and actively cooperated with the investigation agency in solving the case. The police recovered and temporarily seized a total of more than 43 billion VND and 118,800 USD along with many other assets to remedy the consequences.

In this case, in addition to violations at the Vietnam Register, the prosecution agencies also clarified many violations at 11 registration centers in Ho Chi Minh City and 3 registration centers in Long An, Ben Tre, and Soc Trang.

Accordingly, in addition to Mr. Ha, Hinh and Quan, the case also has more than 250 other defendants, including: 132 other defendants who are officers and employees of the Department of Vehicle Registration and vehicle registration centers being prosecuted for accepting bribes; 6 defendants proposed for prosecution for abusing their positions and powers while performing official duties (including Mr. Nguyen Vu Hai, former Deputy Director of the Vietnam Vehicle Registration); 53 defendants prosecuted for giving bribes; 5 bribe brokers...

The major vehicle inspection case is considered an organized corruption case, with systematic behavior, spanning from the leaders of the Vehicle Inspection Department, the Department of Motor Vehicle Inspection to the directors of many centers. Since the beginning of the investigation into large-scale violations in the vehicle inspection field, by the end of 2023, the police of 49 localities had prosecuted 114 cases, with more than 800 defendants. Authorities determined that the cases had in common the sharing of "organized, prolonged, continuous, and multi-level" profits.