Police in Ho Chi Minh City have arrested Dang Viet Ha, head of the Vietnam Register, which is in charge of vehicle registration, for allegedly receiving bribes.

The move is part of an investigation into alleged violations at vehicle registration centers in Ho Chi Minh City, Long An, Tien Giang, Soc Trang, Dong Thap, and Ben Tre.

At a press conference on Wednesday to unveil violations at the vehicle registration centers, Major Nguyen Thanh Hung, deputy head of the criminal police division under the Ho Chi Minh City Public Security Department, said directors of the vehicle registration and inspection centers had given hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dong (VND100 million = US$4,298) per month to Ha and leaders of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Division at the Vietnam Register.

City police will continue expanding the probe into the case in the coming time.

Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang late last week assigned Nguyen Vu Hai, deputy head of the Vietnam Register, to take charge of the agency while Ha was involved in the investigation.

On the same day, investigators from the police in Ho Chi Minh City’s outlying district of Hoc Mon also filed charges against Hoang Tan Luc, director of the 50-14D auto registration center in the district, Be Binh Duong, deputy director of the center, and five employees of the center for allegedly receiving bribes.

At the press conference, Senior Lieutenant Colonel Tran Thi Kim Ly, head of the office of the Ho Chi Minh City Public Security Department, said 84 people have been prosecuted for being involved in the case on charges of bribe brokering, giving and taking, and document falsification.

Of the total, 80 are directors, deputy directors, and employees of vehicle registration centers and brokers.

Three of them are officials at the Motor Vehicle Inspection Division under the Vietnam Register, including Tran Anh Quan, acting head of the division, Dang Tran Khanh, deputy head of the division, and Pham Duc Ngoc, an employee of the division.

Police in Ho Chi Minh City have raided eight vehicle registration and inspection centers in the city and five others in the Mekong Delta provinces of Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Dong Thap, and Soc Trang.

These centers have been found to breach regulations.

They certified over 70,000 vehicles which failed to meet technical and environmental standards as meeting the standards to illegally earn tens of billions of Vietnamese dong (VND10 billion = $430,077).

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