Defendants stand trial at the People’s Court of HCM City on Thursday. — Photo congly.vn

HCM CITY — The People’s Court of HCM City on Thursday opened a first-instance trial for 19 defendants charged with illegally transporting currency across the border and money laundering in a particularly large-scale case involving underground money transfer networks between Việt Nam and Cambodia.

The total value of transactions in the case is estimated at trillions of Vietnamese đồng and tens of millions of US dollars.

According to the indictment issued by the city People’s Procuracy, defendants Phạm Văn Nhàn (born 1980, owner of the Vua food business establishment), Đỗ Viết Đại (born 1971, owner of Đức Long gold shop), Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy (born 1983), Dương Đại Nghĩa (born 1990, employee of Vua food company), Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân (born 1977, employee of Đức Long gold shop), and nine others were prosecuted for “illegally transporting currency across the border”.

Meanwhile, Mai Vũ Minh (born 1995), Lê Thị Thắm (born 1976), Okoye Christian Ikechukwu (born 1985, Nigerian nationality), Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thúy (born 1989), and Nguyễn Thị Hương (born 1990) were charged with “money laundering”.

Two other suspects, Mai Trà My (Minh’s elder sister) and Eneh Davidson Caleb (a Nigerian national), remain at large and have been placed on the wanted list.

According to prosecutors, Nhàn was engaged in trading bird’s nests between Việt Nam and Cambodia. Seeing the strong demand for cross-border money transfers, in 2016, Nhàn and Thu Thủy rented premises to organise illegal money transfer operations, establishing networks on both sides of the border to facilitate transactions.

Nhàn and Thu Thủy directly operated the network and hired Nghĩa, along with several employees, to handle money collection and delivery. Customers wishing to transfer money to Cambodia were instructed to meet Nghĩa to count the cash and record the recipient's details.

Nghĩa or Nhàn would then contact partners in Cambodia so that the recipients could collect the funds at pre-arranged locations. Transfer fees were deducted directly from the remitted amount.

Each transfer through this channel was limited to a maximum of VNĐ1 billion ($50,000). Larger transfers were handled through another network run by Đại and Ngân.

Investigators determined that the network illegally transferred VNĐ304 billion and $4.8 million from Việt Nam to Cambodia, while VNĐ303 billion and $4.9 million were transferred in the opposite direction.

From 2016 until the ring was uncovered, Nhàn and Thu Thủy allegedly earned illegal profits of about VNĐ24 billion, while Nghĩa received total wages of VNĐ828 million and other employees earned between VNĐ133 million and VNĐ600 million.

In the second network, Đại – owner of Đức Long gold and jewellery shop in HCM City – had previously been fined VNĐ1 billion by the People’s Court of Quảng Nam Province in 2022 for violations in gold trading.

Afterwards, Đại assigned Ngân to coordinate with Duyên, owner of Gold Shop 60 in Cambodia. Ngân rented premises on Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street to manage transactions and record keeping, while instructions and payment details were exchanged via the Telegram application.

From late 2023 to April 2024, Ngân transferred about VNĐ2.05 trillion and $10.7 million from Cambodia to Việt Nam, while receiving VNĐ35.4 billion and $8.1 million to send in the opposite direction, earning more than VNĐ1.2 billion in illegal profits.

The pair also handled separate transfers of $150,000 for a client in China and $51,000 for a client in Cambodia.

Regarding money laundering, investigators found that Minh established multiple companies to conduct banking transactions, concealing illicit funds totalling $789,057, earning more than VNĐ383 million under the direction of his sister My.

Thắm similarly set up companies to disguise over $1.4 million, gaining more than VNĐ2 billion together with her husband, Ikechukwu.

Other defendants also handled large sums, including Thanh Thúy with about VNĐ149.4 billion and Hương with about VNĐ56.7 billion in illicit transactions. — VNA/VNS