A large gold shop in An Giang Province, southern Vietnam has been discovered not issuing sales invoices worth over US$437million to allegedly evade paying tax, two months after its owner’s arrest for cross-border gold smuggling.

The provincial police on Saturday initiated an investigation into the tax evasion committed by Phuoc Nguyen gold shop, whose legal representative, 57-year-old Nguyen Thanh Binh, was detained and prosecuted in January for smuggling gold from Cambodia into Vietnam.

The shop, located in the provincial capital city of Long Xuyen, has been found not issuing sales invoices totaling about VND10,000 billion ($437.16 million) that would have been included in its tax declaration for calculating payable tax amounts, as required by law, investigators said.

This probe is an expanded part of the gold smuggling case that was uncovered on January 10, when Binh and another suspect, Trang Kien Cuong, were caught dealing in three gold ingots weighing three kilograms illegally imported from Cambodia, police said.

Police officers expanded their investigation and arrested three other suspects after detaining the two men and seizing the smuggled gold, along with nearly $170,000 and VND700 million ($30,600), from them.

During their search of Phuoc Nguyen and some other related establishments, officers seized about 15 kilograms of gold jewelry, VND26 billion ($1.13 million), more than $2.2 million, and another amount of money in other foreign currencies.

Inspectors have also confiscated some documents and mobile phones in association with the smuggling case from the inspected sites.

Further investigations into the smuggling and tax evasion are underway, police said.

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