The Ministry of Public Security has designated Trieu dai Viet (Vietnam Dynasty), which seeks to violently overthrow the Vietnamese government, as a terrorist organization. 

In an announcement on Tuesday, it said the organization’s motto is "kill all, burn all, destroy all, and steal all."

It is accused of directing members in Vietnam to carry out terrorist activities, instigate people to join protests and attack police stations and officials' houses.

It has sent thousands of dollars to Vietnam to fund the purchases of guns, bombs and mines, making of flags and printing of seditious flyers, the ministry said.

Last May, 20 people, members of the group and those hired by it, were sentenced to between two and 24 years in jail for a bomb blast at a police station in HCMC's Tan Binh District in June 2018.

A woman officer was injured in the blast and several motorbikes were damaged.

Dust and debris scatter at a police station in HCMC after two bomb blasts in June 2018.
Photo courtesy of the police.

The ministry said anyone found joining, recruiting for, funding, receiving funding from, training with, or working for Trieu dai Viet would face charges of terrorism or terrorism financing.

The organization is headquartered in Canada, according to the ministry. It is headed by Ngo Van Hoang Hung, a Canadian-Vietnamese man who proclaimed himself "prime minister" and runs a Vietnamese "government."

Tran Thanh Dinh, 63, a German-Vietnamese man, proclaimed himself "deputy prime minister," Ngo Manh Cuong, 59, a French-Vietnamese man, is the "director of the general department of special forces" and American-Vietnamese Huynh Thanh Hoang, 44, is the "spokesman for the government."

Vietnamese security agencies have prosecuted Hung, who lives in Canada, for "terrorism to oppose the people's administration" and issued an international warrant for his arrest.

He was sentenced to death by a court in Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta, later reduced to life, for a conspiracy to overthrow the government in 1979.

In 2018 Vietnam classified the Provisional National Government of Vietnam based in the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

U.S.-based Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform Party) was also classified a terrorist group in 2016.

Terrorist attacks are extremely rare in Vietnam.