Jail term upheld for postal scam architect
07-OCT-2008 Intellasia | Thanhniennews
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
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The Court of Appeals in HCM City Friday upheld the 26-year sentence against the mastermind of a massive postal equipment purchase scam that was discovered in 2005.
However, it reduced jail terms for several state officials involved to 14 months, and suspended sentences for some.
The appeals court confirmed the 26-year jail term handed down this May by the Court of First Instance in the southern Dong Nai Province to Nguyen Lam Thai, 46, who was convicted for fraud and tax evasion.
Thai then lodged an appeal to plead innocent to the fraud charge and ask for lighter sentencing for tax evasion.
Of thirty-six people lodging the appeal, several former post officials had their jail terms reduced from 14 months to suspended sentences.
Thai was arrested in June 2005 and charged with faking quotations, invoices and other documents to prove that his corporate group, C.I.P, had the capacity to supply some 31 billion dong (US$1.9 million) worth of equipment to many provincial post offices.
In fact, the company did not have the financial wherewithal to buy and sell the said equipment and instead bought cheaper products and faked certificates of quality and origin before selling them to post offices for a total profit of some 24 billion dong (US$1.5 million).
The company also acquired blank value-added tax invoices and used them to claim that it had already paid some 3.2 billion dong (US$200,000) worth of taxes on the goods.
Twenty-seven state officials, who worked at the 12 post offices involved in the case, were convicted at the first trial for dereliction of duty in allowing the fake invoices to be used.
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