Company leaders arrested for bribing Vietnam Register officials

Mai Van Quan, deputy general director of Hanoi-based Tien Phong Car Technical and Service JSC, was detained by Ho Chi Minh City Police on Sunday for paying Vietnam Register officials to ignore vehicle errors.

Quan was accused of bribing Vietnam Register staff who appraised vehicle upgrading documents many times.

The investigative agency also put Mai Duc Truyen, a specialist of Vietnam Register's vehicle inspection department, under investigation for accepting bribes. The accused was prohibited from leaving his place of residence.

Truyen was accused of taking advantage of his position to receive money from Tien Phong Car Technical and Service JSC, ignoring errors when appraising vehicles.

On the same day, HCMC's Binh Chanh district Police detained Nguyen Chi Quyet, 31, director of the 50-13D Registry Center in HCMC and two deputy directors for accepting bribes.

Regarding the violations in vehicle registration, so far the HCMC Police have prosecuted 147 people for the crimes of forgery at work; giving, receiving or brokering bribes; producing, buying, selling, exchanging or donating tools, equipment and software for illegal use; unauthorized intrusion into other people's computer networks, telecom networks or electronic means; forging documents of organizations; using fake documents of organizations.

In the past four months, police of 30 provinces and cities have prosecuted about 50 cases. In total, nearly 500 people were detained.

At the government's press conference in early February, responding to a question about the investigation into violations at vehicle registration entities, Ministry of Public Security spokesperson To An Xo said that up to then, local police had searched Vietnam Register and 32 vehicle registration centers across the country, prosecuting 248 defendants for crimes like accepting bribes, brokering bribes, and forgery at work.

The Lieutenant General emphasized that this is a case of organized violations, systematic negative behavior, from Vietnam Register leaders, heads of some departments of the agency to the directors of registration centers, causing great losses to society.

In mid-Jan, director of Vietnam Register Dang Viet Ha was detained for further investigation into the alleged act of taking bribes. Earlier, on January 5, the investigative agency had detained three subordinates of Ha on the same charges.