According to the verdict issued by the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court, defendant Do Viet Dai, 55, owner of Duc Long gold shop, was fined VND 3 billion, while Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, 49, received an eight-year prison sentence for illegally transporting currency across the border.
Seventeen other defendants were handed penalties ranging from VND 1 billion in fines to prison sentences of up to 14 years for illegal currency transportation or money laundering.
Among them, Le Thi Tham was sentenced to 13 years in prison, while her husband Okoye Christian Ikechukwy (Nigerian national) received 13 years and six months for money laundering.
Prosecutors said Dai had previously been convicted in a similar illegal money transfer case and therefore did not directly register business operations under his own name. Instead, he assigned Ngan to manage foreign currency exchange activities and arrange money transfers for customers.
Ngan rented locations in Ho Chi Minh City to serve as transaction points and coordinated with a contact in Cambodia to facilitate money transfers between Vietnam and Cambodia.
From late 2023 to April 2024, the group transferred a massive amount of money across the border, including more than VND 2 trillion and tens of millions of US dollars, earning illegal profits of over VND 1.2 billion.
Another branch of the network, led by Pham Van Nhan, illegally transferred more than VND 600 billion and nearly USD 10 million abroad, generating about VND 24 billion in illicit gains.
Investigators said the couple Le Thi Tham and Okoye Christian Ikechukwy were involved in laundering money for foreign criminal groups, mainly from Nigeria.
The suspects established numerous shell companies and opened bank accounts to receive funds of illegal origin from overseas. The money was then withdrawn, converted into Vietnamese dong, or transferred again following instructions from overseas operators in exchange for commissions.
Tham alone registered 53 companies used to receive and transfer funds totaling tens of billions of dong.
The case was dismantled in April 2024 by investigators from the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department. Authorities simultaneously arrested multiple suspects and seized more than VND 9 billion (over USD 1.5 million) and other foreign currencies that were about to be transferred abroad.
Investigators described the case as one of the largest cross-border money transfer and laundering networks uncovered in Vietnam, involving sophisticated methods such as using gold shops, shell companies and a network of bank accounts to legitimise illicit financial flows.
