8:08 AM
Trung
Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on Tuesday sentenced the mastermind of a timber smuggling operation to 16 years in jail.
Nguyen Van Hoa, deputy director of Kim Loi Limited Company based in neighboring Binh Duong Province, along with seven other defendants were found guilty of smuggling 93 containers of protected timber to China.
Four executives of companies in Binh Duong were sentenced to a jail term between 4 and 13 years.
Nguyen Van Hoa, deputy director of Kim Loi Limited Company based in neighboring Binh Duong Province, along with seven other defendants were found guilty of smuggling 93 containers of protected timber to China.
The company and its executives were operating under the cover of business that exported products to China.
Four executives of companies in Binh Duong were sentenced to a jail term between 4 and 13 years.
Two custom officers found guilty of corruption received 9 years and a year of probation.
According
to the indictment, Hoa bought the illegally-logged wood and conspired
with Kim Loi Limited Company associates to export the wood by covering
them with other products in the containers between December 2006 and
June 2007.
They
bribed two officers of the Saigon Port Customs Office – Nguyen Viet Nam
and Nguyen The Van – with US$1,700 to facilitate the exports.
On
June 14, 2007, the smuggling operation was uncovered after customs
officers found 10 containers of protected wood labeled as “coconut-made
nets” intended for China.
The
indictment accuses the smuggler of exporting more than 1.7 million
cubic meters of illegal timber worth VND26 billion ($1.24 million).
Thanh Nien, Agencies
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