Financial Crime World

Asset Recovery in Vietnam: Challenges and Opportunities

Positive Developments

While there have been instances of successful asset recovery, such as:

  • Huynh Ngoc Si’s repayment: 5.109 billion VN dong was recovered from the individual for their own crimes.
  • Nguyen Ngoc Thanh Tung’s case: 5.650 billion VN dong was recovered from Vietinbank in Bac Giang Province.

Shortcomings and Limitations

Despite these successes, there are significant shortcomings:

  • Total damaged assets: Over 5,335 billion VN dong have been misappropriated through corrupt activities.
  • Recovery rate: Only 1,913 billion VN dong has been recovered (35.9%).
  • Grand corruption cases: In several high-profile cases, almost nothing has been recovered due to the offenders’ ability to disperse their assets or avoid paying damages.

Reasons for Shortcomings

The following factors have contributed to these challenges:

1. Inadequate Detection and Distrain

  • Criminal justice authorities: Failed to promptly detect and take measures to block property, allowing offenders to conceal or legitimize illegal income.
  • Consequences: Offenders were able to disperse their assets or avoid paying damages.

2. Lack of Professional Capacity

  • Investigators and procurators: Lacking general knowledge of budget management, finance, banking, investment, and construction, hindering proper tracing and tracking of corrupt assets.
  • Implications: This lack of expertise has hindered the recovery of damaged or appropriated property.

3. Insufficient Awareness and Expertise

  • Investigators and procurators: Not fully aware of their responsibilities and roles, lacking expertise, or having inadequate qualifications to ensure recovery of damaged or appropriated property.
  • Consequences: This has led to a lack of effective asset recovery efforts.
  • Anti-Corruption Law 2005: And Criminal Procedure Codes 2003 and 2015 do not provide specific regulations for recovering corrupt assets, leading to inadequate responsibilities and roles of competent authorities in asset recovery.
  • Implications: This has resulted in a lack of clarity and effectiveness in asset recovery efforts.

5. Obstacles in Economic Management, Administration, and Judgement Enforcement

  • Mechanisms controlling individual assets, income, cash, and large transactions are inadequate
  • Identifying property damaged by corrupt acts is complex and time-consuming
  • Offenders use sophisticated tricks to commit offenses and hide corrupt proceeds
  • Handling assets related to grand corruption cases is difficult due to the disparity between the value of distrained property and the total amount of illicit proceeds

Conclusion

Addressing these challenges will require improving the legal system, enhancing investigators’ professional capacity, and strengthening coordination among authorities involved in asset recovery. By doing so, Vietnam can increase its effectiveness in recovering corrupt assets and promoting a more transparent and accountable society.