The Criminal Investigation Police Agency of the Bắc Ninh provincial police searches the workplace of Hoàng Văn Huấn (striped shirt). VNA/VNS Photo

BẮC NINH – Police in Bắc Ninh Province have charged 32 people over a network that forged medical records to help convicted criminals evade prison sentences, authorities announced on May 2.

Six suspects face charges of forgery in the course of duty; 26 face charges of using forged documents of agencies or organisations.

The Criminal Investigation Agency of Bắc Ninh Provincial Police, working with the provincial People's Procuracy and the Criminal Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, dismantled the network following direction from the Ministry of Public Security.

Between 2022 and September 2025, a number of convicted individuals exploited legal provisions allowing sentenced prisoners to defer their terms if suffering from a serious or life-threatening illness. Acting through intermediaries, including State officials, they made contact with Hoàng Văn Huấn, born in 1967, Deputy Director of the Hà Nội Lung Hospital, to obtain fabricated medical records showing severe stage-four pulmonary tuberculosis with multi-drug resistance – the condition required to qualify for a deferral.

Each forged dossier cost between tens of millions and hundreds of millions of đồng.

Huấn directed Lã Đức Mạnh, born in 1995, a nurse in the hospital's Emergency and Intensive Care Unit, to liaise with clients seeking the fake records. Even where individuals had not been treated at the hospital, Huấn ordered technicians to falsify laboratory results and directed Đặng Việt Phong, born in 1994, a doctor in the Emergency Department, and Mạnh to fabricate medical dossiers and nursing care records.

Huấn then supplied clients with certified copies of medical conclusions or records for use in deferral applications to courts or sentence enforcement agencies, securing postponements of between six and 12 months at a time. When a deferral period expired, individuals could repeat the process to obtain new forged dossiers.

The investigation is continuing. Authorities have called on all parties connected to the case to come forward voluntarily to benefit from leniency under the law. — VNS