HCMC – Nguyen Tien Than, aged 42, an international relations official at the Government Office, has been arrested for allegedly receiving bribes in the operation of repatriation flights during the Covid pandemic.
He is the 17th person whom Ministry of Public Security investigators have pressed charges against, eight months after they launched an investigation into allegations of taking and giving bribes and committing fraud to appropriate assets at many ministries, Lieutenant General To An Xo, chief of the Office and spokesperson at the Ministry of Public Security, said on August 18.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the investigators pressed charges against Deputy Minister To Anh Dung; Nguyen Thi Huong Lan, head of the Consular Department; Do Hoang Tung, deputy head of the Consular Department; Le Tuan Anh, head of the department’s office; and Luu Tuan Dung, deputy head of the citizen protection division at the department, for allegedly receiving bribes.
At the Ministry of Public Security, Tran Van Du, former deputy head of the Immigration Department, and his two subordinates, Vu Sy Cuong and Vu Anh Tuan, faced the same charges.
Similarly, the forces filed charges against Pham Trung Kien, a specialist at the Ministry of Health; Ngo Quang Tuan, international cooperation executive at the Ministry of Transport; and Nguyen Mai Anh, international relations executive at the Government Office.
Bui Huy Hoang, an employee at the General Department of Preventive Medicine, under the Health Ministry, is the only one accused of committing fraud to appropriate assets.
According to Lieutenant General Xo, nearly 2,000 flights were operated to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded abroad during the pandemic.