Đinh Ngọc Hệ (standing, right) seen in a previous criminal trial last October. - VNA Photo

HÀ NỘI — Police have launched an investigation into nine people allegedly involved in bidding and accounting fraud on the HCM City-Trung Lương expressway project, a major toll road in southern Việt Nam.

Senior executives of investor Cửu Long Group under the Ministry of Transport – including former Director-General Dương Tuấn Minh, former Deputy Director-General Dương Thị Trâm Anh, and former head of the investment and bidding management department Nguyễn Thu Trang – have been charged with violations of State asset management regulations, causing losses.

The State-owned group is alleged to have conspired with the privately run Yên Khánh Group to falsify data regarding toll collections on the expressway.

Đinh Ngọc Hệ, a former military colonel, together with Phạm Văn Diệt, CEO of Yên Khánh Group, and Vũ Thị Hoan, Yên Khánh’s Director-General, are charged with accounting violations, leading to “serious consequences”, as per Việt Nam’s Penal Code.

These three defendants had already been detained for their involvement in another ongoing case.

Three other employees of Yên Khánh – Tạ Đức Minh, Phạm Tấn Hoàng and Đinh Thị Chung – were also charged with accounting fraud.

The construction of the 62km-long HCM City-Trung Lương expressway started in 2004 and opened in 2010.

In 2012, under a proposal from Cửu Long Group, the Government agreed to open bidding for a third-party to collect tolls on the road to recover the VNĐ9.88 trillion (US$424 million) the Government spent on the construction of the expressway.

Yên Khánh Group won part of the deal worth VNĐ2 trillion and was permitted to collect tolls from 2014 until the end of 2018.

Under the contract, Yên Khánh should have paid for the deal in three installments before October 2014. However, it took the company 15 payments with the last being paid in March 2017 to settle the amount.

Earlier this year, police opened a case looking into how the company’s branch in Long An Province had used fraudulent software to manipulate the money actually collected on the toll road.

Five people were arrested in connection with the case. — VNS