Vietnam Register leaders receive bribes on monthly, quarterly basis: authorities

Up to 248 people have been put under further investigation on charges of receiving bribes, brokering bribes and other violations in a scam related to vehicle registration centers across the country.

At the government's regular press conference on Thursday, 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 now, local police have searched Vietnam Register and 32 vehicle registration centers across the country, prosecuting 248 defendants for crimes like accepting bribes, brokering bribes, and forging 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.

"Some leaders of Vietnam Register and its Motor Vehicle Inspection Department received bribes on a monthly or quarterly basis to ignore errors in the registration of license applications, ignored errors, and signed and approved the issuance of registration codes, etc," he noted.

Xo said that since the police agency searched a number of registration centers, there were public opinions that the police investigation had affected people (some centers were suspended or narrowed down activities).

However, it should be affirmed that the investigation process has not affected vehicle registration activities, because up to now, the police agency has not made any decision on stopping or suspending the operation of registration centers.

"The proceedings are completely in accordance with the law, only confiscating evidence related to the crimes. During the process of the police agency searching a number of registration centers, there were individuals who intended to notify the registration centers across the country that it would be shut down to put pressure on the police agency. The police agency warned these individuals and their tricks did not work," he said.

Currently, the Ministry of Public Security has proposed to the Ministry of Transport to implement groups of solutions to improve the efficiency of state management in this area.

Regarding progress of the investigation into the Viet A Company Covid kit test scam, Xo said that, currently 104 defendants have been prosecuted and seen their assets of about VND1,700 billion ($498.95 million) blocked.

Regarding the repatriation flight scam, so far 41 people have been prosecuted.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Public Security aims to finish investigating these two cases in the first quarter of 2023, but does not rule out the possibility of new details emerging in the investigative process.