VietNamNet Bridge – Most of the luxury cars have been imported to Vietnam as
the assets of Viet Kieu repatriates. There are the rings that bring the cars to
Vietnam under forged documents.
Kim Q, the owner of a nail shop in Portland City of Oregon State in the US, said
that she was once asked to join a ring which created forged documents about Viet
Kieu repatriates and brought luxury cars to Vietnam.
Q said that her family once needed a big sum of money to start up a business.
HS, a Vietnamese in Australia then called her, saying that she could earn some
money by “lending the names and information.”
The man said that if she just left Vietnam and still did not have the US
citizenship, she would need to show the passport granted by the Vietnamese
administration and the “green card.”
After following necessary procedures, a company in HCM City would contact Q and
buy her an air ticket for her flight to Vietnam, where she would stay for four
weeks.
After arriving in the Tan Son Nhat airport, Q would receive an advance of $2,000
on fee from the company. If the cars can safely come to Vietnam, the company
would pay the remaining $6,000.
However, Q then decided not to join the ring, after she called a relative in HCM
City to consult with him about the deal. She was told that the police were
making investigation on similar cases.
Q was not the only one who was asked to “lend the name” to help bring luxury
cars to Vietnam. Thanh Nien newspaper reported that the General Department of
Customs discovered some abnormal things with the Viet Kieu returning to Vietnam.
The abnormal things were that though the Viet Kieu had modest income, they
always brought with themselves to Vietnam very expensive cars worth hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
The police have also requested the General Department of Customs to provide
relating documents to clarify the car imports that it believed were smuggled to
Vietnam with the declarations that these were the assets of Viet Kieu
repatriates.
Luxury cars arrive in Vietnam in masses
Under the Circular No. 118 of the Ministry of Finance, every Viet Kieu
repatriate can bring with himself to Vietnam a car that he is using. The car
would be exempted from the import tax and the VAT.
The preferences, plus the tightening over the car imports both have prompted
people to forge documents of Viet Kieu repatriates to evade tax when bringing
luxury cars to Vietnam.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade has noted the sharp increase in the number of
luxury cars imported to Vietnam recently. In the first 11 months of 2012 alone,
70 luxury cars of Viet Kieu repatriates were allowed to enter Vietnam, the
number that 4.7 times higher than that in 2011 and six times than that in 2010.
The ministry has also pointed out that 90 percent of the Viet Kieu repatriates’
imported cars are luxurious models with the brands of Lexus, Porsche, BMW, Audi,
Land Rover. Especially, these also included super cars such as Bugatti Veyron,
Bentley Continental Flying Spur.
Opinions from the well informed circle said that of the 70 super cars present in
Vietnam, only two have been imported through the official channel, while the
others have been declared as the assets of Viet Kieu repatriates.
Lao Dong