Foreign ministry official arrested for fraud in Vietnam

Foreign ministry official arrested for fraud in VietnamHanoi - Vietnamese police arrested a former Ministry of Foreign Affairs official for using forged foreign documents to defraud investors of more than 3 million dollars, local news reports said Wednesday.

Lt Col Ho Ngoc Ngai, head of the Hanoi Police Department's division for economic security investigations, said agents arrested Nguyen Thanh Ha, 50, director of the Thanh Ha company, on Monday.

Ha, a former official at the service department for the diplomatic corps in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, allegedly forged documents and receipts from organizations including CitiBank, Interpol, the US's FBI, CIA, the Office of the President, and the governments of Moldova and Ghana.

Ha claimed to be an authorized representative of these organizations, and told Vietnamese companies he could help them borrow millions of dollars or participate in upcoming business projects, Ngai said.

Ha then asked the firms to advance him money to pay taxes or transfer frees in order to free up promised flows of millions of dollars in cash from abroad.

"His fake documents were so well-made they were hard to recognize," Ngai said. "Besides that, the businesses' own greediness contributed to his success."

The government-run newspaper Nhan Dan reported Wednesday that Ha had defrauded at least 10 investors on nine fake projects.

Ngai said Interpol helped investigate the document fraud.

"The reason he could cheat people was that some fake documents were confirmed as real by the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Ngai said. "We may prosecute the people who certified these documents."

Under Vietnamese law, Ha could be sentenced to between four and seven years in prison if convicted.

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