On December 27, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced Nguyen Tuan Anh, 43, a former official of the Go Vap District Tax Department, to 20 years in prison for receiving bribes, along with an additional fine of 60 million VND.

Hoang Phi, 35, identified as the ringleader, received a three-year sentence for illegally trading invoices and an eight-year sentence for giving bribes, plus an additional fine of 100 million VND.

Le The Dien, an accountant, received a total of 18 years in prison for both illegally trading invoices and receiving bribes. The seven remaining defendants were sentenced to one to two years in prison for illegally trading invoices.

Defendant Nguyen Tuan Anh (far left) and other defendants in court. Photo: Binh Nguyen.

The verdict confirmed that from 2020 to 2024, Hoang Phi established 168 "ghost companies" to illegally trade fictitious Value Added Tax (VAT) invoices to numerous businesses. He collected 1.7-2.2% of the pre-tax value of goods and services listed on the invoices.

To set up these "ghost companies", Phi contacted individuals specializing in business registration services. He rented multiple apartments in District 12 and the former Go Vap district to serve as transaction locations for issuing invoices. Phi employed seven staff members to assist with operations, paying them 12-15.5 million VND each month. These employees also purchased invoices from Phi at 1.7-2.2% of the total recorded amount and resold them to clients at a higher price (2.3-4%) to profit from the difference.

When many of these "ghost companies" had their tax identification numbers locked due to suspicious activity, Phi connected with Tuan Anh, the tax official managing the area where the companies were registered, to pay "facilitation fees". Tuan Anh pledged not to conduct physical inspections of the businesses, not to address monthly discrepancies between input and output invoices, and not to lock tax identification numbers. He also promised to notify Phi if the system flagged any risks, allowing Phi to temporarily suspend operations or change business addresses to "evade" inspections.

To avoid directly receiving money, Tuan Anh introduced Dien to Phi. Dien was tasked with handling fictitious tax declarations and financial statements for the "ghost companies". Both parties agreed on a bribe rate of 0.3-0.35% of the total sales revenue. Quarterly, Dien would collect the money from Phi and deliver it to Tuan Anh, keeping 0.05% as his share.

Investigating authorities determined that from 2020 to 2024, Phi issued over 45,500 VAT invoices with a total pre-tax value of 6,154 billion VND, a post-tax value of 6,703 billion VND, and corresponding VAT of 548 billion VND. From this extensive operation, Phi illegally profited approximately 110-129 billion VND.

In total, Phi paid Tuan Anh over 4.2 billion VND, corresponding to the revenue of 41 "ghost companies". Tuan Anh subsequently shared 861 million VND with Dien.

During the trial, the defendants admitted their wrongdoing and requested the court consider reducing their sentences.