"Smuggling boss" Nguyen Thi Kim Hanh sentenced to 19 years in prison for tax evasion and money laundering

Two accomplices, former police officers of An Giang province, including Nguyen Van Vo (born in 1968, residing in Chau Phu district) were sentenced to 11 years in prison; Nguyen Van Sang (born in 1970, residing in Tan Chau town) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime of “Money laundering”. The defendants Hanh, Vo, and Sang were additionally fined 100 million VND each to be paid to the State budget.

In addition to the verdict, the Trial Panel also ordered the defendant Hanh to pay back the tax evasion amount of over 755 billion VND to the State Budget; and ordered the two defendants Vo and Sang to pay back the illegal profits of over 3.5 billion VND and over 1.37 billion VND respectively to the State Treasury.

According to the indictment, from 2009 to 2020, Nguyen Thi Kim Hanh established 4 Limited Liability Companies and 2 business households represented by the defendant Hanh herself and her employees to register to do business in many fields, but mainly buying and selling sugar. The origin of the sugar was directly purchased and transported by Hanh from Cambodia to Vietnam for consumption. In which, Hanh registered the names of Hanh Phat Import-Export One Member Limited Liability Company, Thien Su Import-Export Limited Liability Company, Huynh Phat Dat Trading Limited Liability Company with Tran Van Phuong and Nguyen Thi Be Em as Directors, Binh Kim An Trading Limited Liability Company with Le Thi Bach Van as Director. The companies operate in the form of tax deduction declaration.

In addition, the Hanh Phat business household was established by Hanh and was registered as the business owner; from November 2015 to August 2018, Hanh asked Nguyen Thanh Tho (Hanh's nephew) to register as the business owner, from May 2019, it was registered as Mai Thi Ngoc Phan (Hanh's employee). The Nguyen Hoang Ut business household was registered as the business owner by Nguyen Hoang Ut (Hanh's younger brother) and in 2018, it was registered as the business owner by Nguyen Phuoc Loc (Hanh's employee), and then changed to Loc Phat business household. These two business households operate in the form of lump-sum tax declaration.

During the operation of these companies and businesses, Nguyen Thi Kim Hanh sold sugar to 20 customers in An Giang, Vinh Long, Can Tho, Dong Thap, Tra Vinh, Ben Tre, Tien Giang and Ho Chi Minh City for a total amount of more than VND3,000 billion. To receive money from selling sugar from customers, Hanh asked her employees to open bank accounts and asked customers to transfer money to the above accounts instead of transferring it to the bank account registered with the tax authority. These bank accounts were all registered with Hanh's phone number, receiving text messages about account changes when customers transferred money for Hanh to manage. At the same time, when buying and selling sugar, Hanh did not create accounting records, did not issue sales invoices and declared incorrect tax on sales revenue. Based on the results of the tax assessment, the amount of damage to the State budget was determined to be more than VND755 billion.

After that, Hanh directed those who were asked to be the bank account holders to withdraw money from selling sugar without issuing invoices from the accounts and transfer it to the accounts of Nguyen Van Vo and Nguyen Van Sang (who was then an officer of the An Giang Provincial Police) many times with a total amount of nearly 5 billion VND. Of which, Vo received 10 times with the amount of more than 3.5 billion VND, Sang received 11 times with more than 1.3 billion VND under the name of investing in fish farming, saving and doing charity to hide the origin of the money from smuggling sugar and evading taxes.

Regarding the Nguyen Van Sieng business household, the Investigation Police Agency will continue to investigate and clarify the act of "Tax evasion". As for those who bought sugar without issuing invoices, received authorization from Hanh to make money transfers with the sugar buyer or received money from selling sugar on behalf of Hanh, and registered many assets under Hanh's name, the investigation agency will continue to investigate, verify, clarify, and handle according to the law.

Previously, defendant Nguyen Thi Kim Hanh was sentenced by the People's Court of An Giang province to 3 years in prison for "Organizing others to flee abroad", 8 years in prison for "Illegally transporting currency across the border", 14 years in prison for "Smuggling", 23 years in prison for "Smuggling" and "Illegally transporting currency across the border".