To carry out the act of smuggling 50 wooden containers, a very complicated relationship was built around the legal entity of Inbe Asia making it difficult to investigate.

The shipment of 50 smuggled wood. Photo:T.H 

Company address is a grocery store

After discovering the goods were not declared correctly (declared as Doussie but actually, imported West African narra padauk wood), the Southern Anti-Smuggling Enforcement Unit (Unit 3 of the Anti-smuggling and Investigation Department) continued to investigate and verify many organisations and worked with individuals involved in the case in order to clarify the violations.

Specifically, Unit 3 collected documents at Saigon port area 1 Customs Branch and discovered that the dossiers and vouchers of Inbe Asia were all signed by Vice Director Nguyen Huu Loi.

Along with that, the unit collected documents at the Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City related to the registration of establishment and movements of Inbe Asia. At that time, the records show that this company was still operating normally, the director and legal representative at the time of the violation was Mr. Do Thai Toan (born in 1982, permanently residing at: 80/30 Group 26 , Ward 5, Trang Dai Ward, Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai).

As a result of verification at MSC Vietnam shipping line, the representative of the shipping line said that the shipment of 50 wooden containers mentioned above was shipped by BIG KEEN HOLDINGS LTD, address: Ubilee Center, 46 Gloucester Road 1 Queen’s Road Central Hong Kong.

The consignee in Vietnam is the shipping agent of Oriental Shipping and Logistics Company Limited (Oriental Company). MSC shipping line issued a delivery order to its agent that was Oriental Company. In July 2019, Oriental Company sent scans of two applications to refuse to receive the goods and asked the MSC shipping company to let them transfer to a container for re-exporting this shipment. However, MSC found that there was not enough legal basis to deal with the request of Oriental Company, so they did not contact the Customs authority to carry out re-export procedures.

According to verification at Oriental Company, this shipment included 50 wooden containers. Based on the information of bill of lading, the wood was transported from Shekou port (China) to the destination port of SP ITC Ho Chi Minh City. Oriental Company was only a shipping agent. The last consignee (owner of the shipment) is Inbe Asia who received the delivery order.

On November 28, 2019, Unit 3 coordinated with the Police of Ward 26 (Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City) to verify address 51 Nguyen Xi, Ward 26, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City as the location where Inbe Asia registered for business. As a result, this address was a grocery store without any signboards and no employees of Inbe Asia working at this location.

Complicated relationships of Inbe Asia Company

Unit 3 worked with the people involved in the case. Accordingly, Pham Dinh Tuan opened the declaration and carried out clearance procedures for the shipment. At the working session, Tuan provided Nguyen Huu Loi's phone number to the working group and gave explanations on the contents related to the shipment managed by Loi. However, after the meeting, Tuan did not contact him again and Unit 3 could not contact Tuan.

According to An Giang Provincial Police, the identity card for Pham Dinh Tuan was real. However, through verifying his permanent address in My Thanh ward (Long Xuyen city, An Giang province), Pham Dinh Tuan did not live here and the local government did not know what he was doing and where he lived.

Nguyen Huu Loi said that Inbe Asia was first established on December 28, 2010 by Nguyen Tan Lac as Director, Loi was Vice Director.

In 2015, the Company elected Loi to work as the Director and legal representative, Lac is the business owner, who invested capital in this business. Inbe Asia Company’s business line was domestic construction and interior decoration, it was not engaged in import-export business.

In June 2018, Inbe Asia, changed the Director and legal representative to Do Thai Toan. Since then, Mr. Loi and Mr. Lac have stopped participating in the activities of Inbe Asia, the entire Company is owned and operated by Toan.

In June 2020, Inbe Asia continued to change the Director and legal representative to Nguyen Trung Hoa. Loi was asked by Toan to carry out the procedures to transfer the Company to Hoa.

According to Loi, the shipment of 50 wooden containers was not his own, but it was owned by Pham Dinh Tuan. In May 2019, Tuan asked Loi to find a company to import wood because Tuan had imported goods but did not have a company to carry out procedures.

Tuan promised to pay Loi VND50 million as remuneration by December 5, 2019. Loi came to Toan and asked him to borrow the company to import and asked Toan to authorize the position of Vice Director of Inbe Asia (the authorization was done by documents for the transaction but it did not register at Ho Chi Minh City Planning and Investment Department). Toan agreed with Loi and Loi promised to share the remuneration with Toan.

In addition, Loi confirmed that he was the person who signed the false introduction paper and all documents and vouchers related to the import of this shipment as the request of Tuan and delivered the same digital signature to Tuan so that he could carry out import procedures.

Loi said that he asked Toan to borrow Inbe Asia and borrow the title of Vice Director because Toan respected and trusted Loi, but Toan was not involved in the case. As for Nguyen Tan Lac, he did not know about this case because he transferred the Company and stopped doing business. Currently, Loi is not able to contact Tuan and had not received any remuneration from him.

Regarding Nguyen Trung Hoa, who is currently the director and legal representative of Inbe Asia, Hoa said that he accepted the transfer of this company from June 30, 2020 by Toan as Director and legal representative. Loi, on behalf of the Director Do Thai Toan, hired the service of transferring the company to Hoa. Hoa did not know and has never met Toan.

Hoa proposed to be financially responsible for handling the shipment of 50 wooden containers of Inbe Asia

Pursuant to Articles 163 and 169 of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Supreme People's Procuracy's decision to transfer the case, the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department transferred the case files and exhibits to PC03 (Ho Chi Minh City Police) and accepted for investigation in accordance with the provisions of law.