Nigerian, Vietnamese sentenced to combined 57 years in jail for money laundering
Tuesday, May 30, 2023, 12:39 GMT+7
A Nigerian man and four Vietnamese nationals were sentenced to a total of nearly 57 years in prison on Monday for money laundering, with the foreigner receiving the highest jail term of 14 years.
The People’s Court of Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province in southern Vietnam on Monday handed down a 14-year prison term to Uzoh Emmanuel, a Nigerian national born in 1988.
Nguyen Thi Hanh, residing in Dong Nai, and Nguyen Thi Vinh, living in Ho Chi Minh City, both born in 1981, will stay behind bars for 11 years each.
Pham Thanh Dung and Vu Thanh Trung, both born in 1985 and residing in southern Tien Giang Province, received prison terms of 10 years and six months and 10 years, respectively.
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| Uzoh Emmanuel, a Nigerian, is jailed for money laundering. Photo: Tuoi Tre |
According to the indictment, from August to September 2021, two Nigerians contacted Emmanuel, who was living with Hanh in Vietnam, to establish companies and opened bank accounts in the Southeast Asian country.
These companies had no business activities but they received money from the two Nigerians, who earned it through fraud.
Emmanuel was paid 20 percent of the amounts, while the remaining was transferred to the two Nigerians.
Emmanuel also told Hanh to seek people to open more companies and bank accounts.
Hanh later worked with Vinh to set up firms in Dung and Trung’s name.
They established a total of 17 companies. After withdrawing money, they received 2-6 percent of the amounts each.
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| Business registration certificates and seals of the companies established by the defendants for money laundering. Photo: Tuoi Tre |
In particular, they withdrew over 233,000 euros (US$249,775) on August 27, 2021 from the bank account of Keestrack NV Company Limited, whose legal director was Dung.
This is an amount illegally transferred from abroad.
After withdrawing the money, Emmanuel was given VND610 million ($25,985), Hanh, VND244 million ($10,394), Vinh, VND100 million ($4,260), and Dung, VND50 million ($2,130).
The company later completed procedures for dissolution.
On October 20, 2021, the defendants visited a local bank to withdraw $100,000 transferred from abroad to the account of Samar for Import Co. Ltd. whose legal director was Trung but failed as the local police detected their violations and asked the bank to block the account.
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