Authorities hailed it as Vietnam's biggest-ever tax-fraud bustproof, they claim, that the country is serious about tackling fraud and corruption. But another factor has tongues wagging both in Vietnam's boardrooms and at its noodle-soup stands. Thieu and his older brother Nguyen Trong Thang were known not just for their wealththeir private company boasted estimated revenue of $60 million in 2002but for who they are. Born in Vietnam but raised in France, the brothers are Viet Kieu, as people who fled the country following the fall of Saigon in 1975 are known. Once reviled as traitors, Viet Kieu are now seen as resources, even patriots, for their access to foreign capital and Western business and technical expertise. The Hanoi government courts them with preferential tax rates, relaxed visa requirements, even low-interest loans. "It's the best of both worlds," says David Thai, 30, who returned in 1995 and now runs Viet Thai International, a coffee business in Ho Chi Minh City. "In business terms, it's pretty much a license to kill."
High-profile scandals haven't helped. Last April, returnee Huynh Quoc Quang was sentenced to life in prison for bilking people out of at least $10,000 with false promises of American work visas. The following month, police began chasing Ho Tran Lap, a Viet Kieu businessman accused of running an illegal long-distance calling service; he's still on the lam. And on Jan. 16, a Vietnamese-American who runs a company in Ho Chi Minh City that makes brushes and combs was stabbed in the foreheadthe result, police suspect, of a business dispute.
"I always read about the contribution of 'patriotic Viet Kieu' in the newspapers," complains Vu Du, a retired technician. "But look at all these fraudsters, getting rich and cheating the government. If we're not careful, we'll lose our country to such people." Thieu's case will only intensify the suspicions. State media has reported that 33 companies, some of them government owned, are being investigated due to their ties to Dong Nam Telecom.
For now, no trial date has been set for Thieu. As for his brother, he's been questioned and released without being charged. Thieu's family insists that both are innocent. Meanwhile, some sympathizers wonder if Dong Nam is being targeted not because it was unusually corrupt but because its owners lost the support of patrons within the government who had previously looked away. After all, tax evasion is so pervasive in Vietnam, says Thai, that he's been called a "sucker" for bothering to pay them. In Thieu's neighborhood, people don't much care whether he's guilty or not. As one gleeful local puts it: "Everyone hopes police will seize all their property." So much for loving thy neighbor.