As VietNamNet reported, the People's Procuracy of Thai Binh province has just completed the indictment to prosecute Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong and 4 others for the crimes of Extortion of property and Abusing position and power to influence others for personal gain.

Among those prosecuted, defendants Pham Minh Cuong (commonly known as Cuong "quat", has 3 previous convictions) and Vu Dang Phuong (both are freelance workers) were prosecuted for the crime of Extortion.

According to the accusation, in 2016, Sao Do Company was licensed by the People's Committee of Thai Binh province to exploit sand in the sea of ​​Thuy Truong commune, Thai Thuy district.

At that time, Cuong and Phuong illegally encroached, planted stakes, and illegally exploited and managed 180 hectares of tidal flats. Most of this tidal flat area overlapped with the sand mine that Sao Do Company was allowed to exploit.

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Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong at the time of his arrest. Photo: Thai Binh Provincial Police

Of the 180 hectares above, 45 hectares are located on the outer part of the tidal flat adjacent to the Hoa River estuary, which is the only way for companies' ships to enter the mine to exploit and transport sand. Taking advantage of this, Cuong and Phuong forced Sao Do Company to pay "protection money". If they did not comply with the request, Cuong would obstruct and not let the ships pass, so Sao Do Company was forced to accept paying "protection money".

Accordingly, Cuong requested Sao Do Company to pay 1,500 VND/m3 of sand that the company exploited, equivalent to more than 1 million VND/sand mining ship.

To conceal his extortion, Cuong signed a contract to work as a security guard for Sao Do Company. From September to December 2020, Sao Do Company was forced to pay Cuong more than 3.3 billion VND.

During the sand mining process, the sand-carrying ships of Sao Do Company collided and knocked down the stakes and fences at the illegally established tidal flat managed by Tran Van Dung (aka “Dung Chien”), opposite Cuong’s tidal flat. This caused the two “gangster” groups to clash and fight many times.

Seeing that it was unsafe, Sao Do Company stopped mining and stopped paying Cuong. Suffering from "loss of revenue", Cuong went to the private home of Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong (at that time a member of the 15th National Assembly, Deputy Head of the People's Aspirations Committee - National Assembly Standing Committee) to ask for intervention to create favorable business conditions.

When they met, Cuong told Mr. Nhuong that he earned 400 - 500 million VND per month from "protection money". Cuong also took Mr. Nhuong and his wife to see and invited them to invest in buying land in the tidal flat.

In July 2021, Mr. Nhuong and his wife were sold 30 hectares of illegally encroached tidal flats by Cuong for about 1.2 billion VND (only 900 million VND). After purchasing, Mr. Nhuong handed over to Cuong to manage and exploit to collect money.

In return, Mr. Nhuong called the authorities to intervene and help Cuong. Mr. Nhuong also took Cuong to the authorities' headquarters and met with the commune authorities to gain prestige and create conditions for Cuong to continue extorting property.

As for the "Dung Chien" group, after knowing that Cuong's group had someone "backing them up", they left to do business elsewhere.

According to the indictment, the total amount of money Pham Minh Cuong and his accomplices extorted from Sao Do Company was 4.9 billion VND. Of which, the extortion of 1.6 billion VND from October 2021 to July 2022 was with the assistance of Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong.