Summary
- A former official at VietJet Air has been arrested in a bribery scandal over for-profit COVID-19 repatriation flights.
- The scandal is a component of a wider anti-corruption crackdown in Vietnam, where over 50 people were accused of bribery.
- The investigation revealed that 20 officials and civil servants received nearly $7 million in bribes to facilitate administrative procedures for repatriation flights.
A senior official at Vietnamese low-cost airline VietJet Air has reportedly been on house arrest for 2 weeks after being accused of bribing to secure for-profit COVID-19 repatriation flights. It comes after a long-running investigation uncovered as many as 50 people were giving and receiving bribes earlier this yr.
While most penalties are prison sentences of around a decade, some, including former government officials, face life behind bars. The invention of the alleged flight bribes is reportedly a part of a significant anti-corruption move in Vietnam that resulted within the resignation of the country’s President.
Hundreds of dollars in bribery money
In line with VnExpress, Nguyen Manh Cuong, the top of e-commerce at VietJet, was arrested by Vietnamese officials on September twenty third, pending an investigation into his alleged activities at the peak of the pandemic. Cuong was not the just one arrested last month, as 4 other accomplices were accused of giving bribes.
Photo: Phuong D. Nguyen/Shutterstock
On the identical day, Dang Nhat Duc, the Director of Top Agent Japan, Vu Hong Quang, the previous Deputy Head of the Aviation Transport Department inside the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, Tran Thanh Nha, and Vu Hoang Dung were also reportedly placed on house arrest on suspicion of bribery. In line with Al Jazeera, Dung allegedly received over $900,000 in bribes so as to add firms to an inventory of repatriation flight providers.
Life sentences
The accusations follow an investigation that exposed the small print of a COVID-19 repatriation bribery scandal, where personnel from quite a few ministries and departments were reportedly sentenced for bribery and abusing power. After an 18-day trial, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced 54 people for giving, receiving, and soliciting bribes and obtaining property by fraud and abuse of power, in response to VnExpress.
A minimum of 20 officials and civil servants received nearly $7 million from around 100 businesses, in response to Al Jazeera. The cash was used
Some accused reportedly received prison terms upwards of ten years or more, but others face a for much longer penalty. Nguyen Thi Huong Lan, a former official on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Hoang Van Hung, a former investigator on the Ministry of Public Security; Pham Trung Kien, a former secretary to the Deputy Minister of Health, and Vu Anh Tuan, the Deputy Head of the staff division of the immigration department, were imprisoned for all times within the case, as reported by VnExpress.
Greater than $6 million in bribes
Nearly 400 repatriation flights were operated by Vietnamese airlines, including VietJet, from the start of the pandemic to mid-2021. The flights were conducted to permit Vietnam nationals to return from abroad because the COVID crisis shuttered a lot of the world. Nonetheless, travelers reportedly handled complicated procedures to get on the flights and needed to pay quarantine fees and tickets that were unreasonably priced.
Photo: Airbus
20 businesses had reportedly been bribed greater than 500 times to get the flights to be approved. In line with VnExpress, the bribes totaled nearly $6.8 billion (VND165 billion). Al Jazeera reported that the full amount of bribery money involved amounted to $9.5 million, including around $2.7 million given to law enforcement officials in an effort to avoid prosecution.