Police in central Nghe An Province have detained the chief representative of Kinh Te Nong Thon (Rural Economy) Newspaper in Nghe An-Ha Tinh provinces after catching him receiving a bribe from a company.

>> Reporter charged for taking bribe from bar owner >> Reporter arrested for allegedly taking bribe The detainee is Van Thanh, a 33-year-old reporter, who was arrested on Monday at Vinh Airport in Nghe An Province while waiting for a flight to Ho Chi Minh City to attend a meeting. Thanh was caught receiving VND20 million (US$960) from a staff member of Hanoi-based Vinland Investment and Construction Joint Stock Company, which built a road to link Thanh Chuong and Do Luong Districts in Nghe An about a year ago. Van Thanh was alleged to have written several recent articles related to the quality of the road, and after his first article was published in the newspaper, he advised the company in question to be “reasonable,” or else it would suffer from his following articles. According to police, Thanh had requested that the company assign an employee to bring the amount to the airport for him.

In fact, Van Thanh had demanded that the company pay him more than VND20 million, police said. In talking with Tuoi Tre about Thanh’s arrest, Le Van Thom, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper, said, “Through news websites, we knew about Thanh’s arrest. We are waiting for a conclusion of the investigation by Nghe An police before taking any action towards him.” Thom added, “On September 3, Kinh Te Nong Thon published an article by Van Thanh about the degradation of the road built by Vinland.  On September 9, another article, also written by him about the issue, was published. The same day, we received a third article on the same topic by Van Thanh.” “We are surprised by the cause for which Van Thanh was arrested,” Thom said. A similar case occurred last month as police from the Ministry of Public Security detained Vo Thanh Tung, 31, whose penname is Duy Dong, of Phap Luat Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh (Ho Chi Minh City Law) Newspaper, for allegedly taking a bribe from a bar in southern Dong Nai province. The reporter was arrested on August 7 while he was receiving VND50 million (US$2,370) in cash at Wooshu hotel on August 7 from Tran The Duy Thanh, owner of the NTM bar in Vo Thi Sau ward, Bien Hoa city. Before his arrest, the reporter had written a series of stories to expose violations by the bar. After some of his first articles were published, Thanh asked Tung to stop publishing stories about MTM. Tung later required a payment of VND200 million ($9,480). Thanh prepared the money and reported this case to police at the same time.