A  Vietnam court on Thursday handed down a 12-year sentence on a man who led a 10-member ring that forged papers including passports to send 56 people to Japan over 4 years.

>> Agencies probe sending of people to Italy illegally >> Vietnam jails 3 for up to 5 yrs for sending 84 to Australia The ringleader, Vo Thanh, 54, from Ho Chi Minh City, received the sentence on charges of “organizing and/or coercing other persons to flee abroad or to stay abroad illegally,” and “forging seals and/or documents of agencies and/or organizations,” the Hoa Thanh District People’s Court in the southern province of Tay Ninh said at the court hearing that opened yesterday. Thanh’s nine accomplices received sentences ranging from a year and a half to eight years – including three suspended sentences – on the same charges. According to the indictment, in September 2013, while examining papers of passengers who were carrying out procedures to go Japan at Tan Son Nhat International airport in Ho Chi Minh City, police caught two people using fake passports. One of them is L.T.N.T. a 26-year- woman from the northern province of Phu Yen, but she was using a passport with the name Tran Le Nhat Thi. She later was found using other papers to make her eligible to enter Japan. After an investigation, police concluded that these fake papers were provided by a ring led by Thanh, who charged his customers a package fee of US$4,000 per set of documents. Thanh had Pham Duc Hoc, 64, and Nguyen Thi Nga, 60, both in southern Binh Duong province, forge papers including household registration books, ID cards, passports, marriage certificates, death certificates, and many other kinds of papers. Thanh’s other accomplices were Pham Van Dong (who died in July 2014), Nguyen Minh Quan, 61, and Tran Phuoc Chau, 55, all in Tay Ninh, who sought customers for Thanh. Meanwhile, four other ring members helped Thanh meet and reach agreements with those who wanted to go to Japan on fake papers.

After having fake files, Thanh sent them to Japan to his customers’ relatives, who would use them to make procedures to sponsor his customers to go to Japan in the form of family reunion. When the Japanese government approved such sponsors, Thanh would arrange for his customers to get visas and leave Vietnam. From 2009 until September, when Thanh and his accomplices were arrested, his ring successfully sent 56 people to go to Japan with fake papers. These people were among 119 people to whom Thanh’s ring had provided fake papers of various kinds. Thanh’s ring earned a total of VND3.38 billion ($159,500) from the above illegal activities.