On 5/1, two former directors of the Food Safety Department, Nguyen Thanh Phong and Tran Viet Nga, along with Ms. Nga's husband, Le Hoang, a former deputy director of the Disease Prevention Department, are among 34 individuals being tried by the Hanoi People's Court on charges of receiving bribes.

In the same case, 21 people are being tried for giving bribes.

>>List of 55 defendants

Former director Tran Viet Nga and her husband, Le Hoang, are being tried today on bribery charges. Photo: Ministry of Health

The Food Safety Department is a specialized unit under the Ministry of Health, tasked with advising the Minister on state management and enforcement in food safety. For seven consecutive years, from 2018-2025, several leaders and specialists of the department allegedly exploited vague legal regulations to create a "request and grant" mechanism, facilitating bribery.

According to the indictment, the violations occurred during the appraisal process for issuing product declaration registration certificates, advertisement content confirmation certificates, and during the appraisal, post-inspection, and issuance of good manufacturing practices (GMP) certificates.

Regarding the appraisal of applications for product declaration registration certificates, some individuals and service businesses reportedly agreed with department specialists to "pay money to get the job done". Each application had an average "price" of 5 to 10 million dong.

Phong allegedly approved the policy for specialists to accept money to assist applicants, but this came with a clear profit-sharing mechanism. The director received 2,5 to 3 million dong per application, with the remainder distributed among various levels, from department heads to handling specialists.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, director from 2018-2024, at the time of his arrest. Photo: VTV

Former Director and Husband Entangled in Legal Trouble

The issuance of advertisement content confirmation certificates was overseen by Tran Viet Nga, who served as deputy director from 2018-2024 and director from 2024 until her arrest. Nga allegedly instructed specialists to discreetly provide at least 2 million dong to department leaders for each application submitted for approval.

The Supreme People's Procuracy determined that Nga's violations stemmed from exploiting regulations where the Food Safety Department handled the registration procedures for health protection food advertisement content confirmation certificates.

The Food Poisoning Surveillance and Communication Department served as the initial point of contact for applications. Upon receipt, defendant Tran Thi Thu Lieu, deputy head of the department, would assign specialists to process and appraise the applications, instructing them to "proactively offer money to thank Ms. Nga".

With this implicit approval, specialists advised businesses seeking timely certificate issuance without extensive revisions to pay additional fees beyond the official charges. For each application, specialists collected 2 to 8 million dong, either in cash or via bank transfer.

Specifically, specialists collected 4 million dong for applications with simple content; 5-6 million dong for applications with persuasive, elaborate content, extensive text, or advertisement videos under 30 seconds. Longer videos incurred an additional one million dong. The "facilitation fee" increased to 6-7 million or 8 million dong for expedited approval of applications and videos.

The specialists agreed on a tiered profit-sharing mechanism for the collected money. Nga personally received 2 to 3,5 million dong per application.

From 2/2018 to 12/2024, six specialists from the Food Poisoning Surveillance and Communication Department directly received 12,7 billion dong from businesses seeking advertisement content confirmation.

Nga received 8 billion dong, while Lieu received 1,5 billion. Other individuals received between 99 million dong and 823 million dong.

Nga's husband, Le Hoang, then head of the Standards and Testing Management Department, was accused of allowing specialists to accept money from individuals submitting product declaration registration applications, then aggregating the money for department leaders. Under the profit-sharing scheme, Hoang received nearly one billion dong between 2018 and 2023.

Prosecuting agencies assert that Phong, Nga, and 32 subordinates abused their authority to receive bribes totaling 107,4 billion dong from 21 defendants, including individuals and businesses. This sum includes 93,7 billion dong received for issuing product declaration certificates, 12,7 billion dong for advertisement confirmation certificates, and one billion dong for GMP certificates.

Phong personally benefited by 43,9 billion dong in his role as a supervisor; Nga personally benefited by 8 billion dong, also as a supervisor. Former deputy director Nguyen Hung Long benefited by 8,6 billion dong, and former deputy director Do Huu Tuan benefited by 4,3 billion dong.

The 21 defendants indicted for giving bribes collectively transferred 77,4 billion dong. The police are continuing to investigate an additional 27,5 billion dong in alleged bribes.

Pham Du - Thanh Lam