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Vietnam firm uses false consular certificate to smuggle medicine from Canada

Vietnam firm uses false consular certificate to smuggle medicine from Canada

Wednesday, September 24, 2014, 12:39 GMT+7

Vietnamese investigators have discovered that a Vietnamese pharmaceutical joint stock company, VN Pharma, whose CEO has been detained for alleged drug smuggling, had used a fake certificate to import drugs from Canada.

>> Vietnam agency seeks Canada’s help in verifying imported drug files >> CEO of Vietnam drug firm held for alleged smuggling Nguyen Minh Hung, the chairman and CEO of Ho Chi Minh City-based VN Pharma, was arrested on September 19 for allegedly smuggling and counterfeiting bidding documents. That same day, police also detained, Vo Manh Cuong, from HCMC's District 7, for allegedly leading a ring that created false documents to distribute smuggled drugs to the local market. Investigations later showed that Hung and Cuong had colluded with several others to smuggle drugs from Canada into Vietnam, investigators said. In April, VN Pharma imported a batch of H-Capita, which is used for the treatment of breast, stomach and rectal cancer,   from Canada, and stored it in the company’s warehouse.  The company had obtained an import license from the Vietnamese Ministry of Health, which issued the document based on a certificate of origin of the drugs signed by a counselor at the Vietnamese Consulate General in Canada. However, this certificate was fake, police said. The counselor whose name was on the certificate had retired before the issue date, and the signature on the document was not of the official, police explained. Hung and Cuong used this fake certificate to get a permit to import the drugs, which were transported by air to Tan Son Nhat International Airport, investigators said. In order to further the investigation into the smuggling case, the Vietnamese health ministry has asked the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam for help in verifying the origin of drugs imported from the country by VN Pharma. The ministry has recently received a reply in writing from a Canadian agency that the files of several types of medicine imported into Vietnam and registered by VN Pharma are not Canadian-made drugs, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health said last Saturday.Dan Viet newswire, citing a source, also said that Hung had allegedly counterfeited seven bids for  medicine supplies, and that his company recently won a bid worth as much as VND800 billion (US$37.7 million).

VN Pharma was established in 2011 with a charter capital of VND40 billion (nearly $1.9 million) and worked in the pharmaceutical distribution market in Vietnam.

The company is headquatered at 666/10/3 Ba Thang Hai Street in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City.

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