Authorities in Viet Nam are preparing for the trials of 151 defendants in the country's two biggest smuggling and corruption cases.
The nearly back-to-back trials would both be held in Ho Chi Minh City, with the so-called Tan Truong Sanh case commencing in the last week of March 1999, it was reported February 11. There would be 74 defendants, including as many as 50 civil servants - mostly Customs officers.
Together with businessman Tran Dam, his wife and two sons, the officials are charged with importing electrical appliances without paying import duties. This resulted in estimated losses to the state of US$28 million. Customs agents from the imperial city of Hue to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta were reportedly in on the operation, which ran from 1994 until it was stopped in September 1997. Military and police warehouses were used to store the goods, which were so plentiful that shipments could affect the price of electronic goods on the market.
Even more stunning are the state losses racked up in the Minh Phung-Epco case - an estimated US$280 million, most of it in loans fraudulently acquired from state banks and squandered in a failed attempt to corner the once-booming property development market in Ho Chi Minh City.
Legal experts expected the case to last about 10 weeks. It would involve 77 defendants.