Trial begins in multimillion dollar Vietnamese mobile phone smuggling scam

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The trial of 17 people charged in an elaborate
multimillion dollar mobile phone smuggling operation opened Wednesday,
a court official said.

The trial is expected to last up to two weeks, said an official from
the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court who only gave her name as Thanh.

The case centers on businessman Nguyen Gia Thieu, 39, a French citizen
of Vietnamese origin, who was arrested in January 2002 and charged with
smuggling and tax evasion. He faces a possible death penalty.

The police investigation said Thieu ran an operation that smuggled
about 40,000 mobile phones from Hong Kong, Singapore and Cambodia worth
149 billion dong (US$9.5 million; 7.06 million) into Vietnam between
1999-2002.

Thieu allegedly bribed Vietnam Airlines crew members and customs
officers to get the smuggled phones into Vietnam. In addition to Thieu,
eight customs officers, four flight attendants, and four others were
also charged in the smuggling operation.

At the time, Thieu headed up Dong Nam Company Ltd., which served as
Vietnam's chief distributor of Nokia and Samsung mobile phones. Both
manufactures have appointed new distributors.

Dong Nam had also under-declared the prices of its legally imported
mobile phones to evade import and corporate income taxes, according to
the investigation report. The tax evasion cost the government about 100
billion dong (US$6.4 million; 4.76 million), it said.

Vietnam, with a population of 82 million, currently has more than 4
million mobile phone subscribers.


11/16/05 06:38 EST


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