Close-up of the illegal projects of "tobacco tycoon" Le Thanh Than

Tomorrow morning (August 10), the Hanoi People's Court will open a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Le Thanh Than - Chairman of Muong Thanh Group for defrauding customers.

Accordingly, Mr. Le Thanh Than was prosecuted for the crime of "Deceiving customers" under the provisions of Clause 2, Article 198 of the Penal Code with the highest penalty of up to 5 years in prison for the crime of Deceiving customers due to violations related to the CT6 Kien Hung project (Ha Dong district, Hanoi).

Real Estate - Close-up of illegal projects of — CT6 Kien Hung Project.

Also on trial with Mr. Le Thanh Than were 6 other defendants prosecuted for the crime of "Lack of responsibility causing serious consequences" including: Do Van Hung - former Chairman of Kien Hung Ward People's Committee, Nguyen Duy Uyen and Bui Van Bang - both former Vice Chairmen of Kien Hung Ward People's Committee; Nguyen Van Nam - former Chief Inspector of Construction of Ha Dong District, Vuong Dang Quan - former Deputy Chief Inspector of Construction of Ha Dong District and Mai Quang Bai - former officer of the Construction Inspectorate of Ha Dong District.

The indictment of the Hanoi People's Procuracy stated that Mr. Le Thanh Than was the Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Bemes Company. This company was allowed by the Hanoi People's Committee to change the land use purpose, but defendant Than directed the construction in serious violation of the construction planning. Mr. Than arbitrarily changed the land use purpose, and the construction seriously violated the planning approved by the competent authority.

For the high-rise block, Mr. Than directed to increase the construction area, increase the height of the building, and change the usage function. Bemes Company also built more apartments and built an additional CT6C building that was not in the approved planning. For the low-rise block, Bemes Company increased the construction land area and the number of low-rise apartments, violating the red line.

Since March 2011, Mr. Than has directed his subordinates to advertise false information about the legality of the project to sell illegally built apartments. Chairman of Muong Thanh advertised that the project had been approved, the apartment design and construction complied with construction regulations, the apartment selling price included the value of land use rights...

“The investigation results determined that the defendant Le Thanh Than sold 488 apartments to 488 customers whose land use rights, home ownership rights and other assets attached to the land were not recognized by the State, illegally profiting a total of more than 481 billion VND,” the indictment stated.

Previously in 2016, the Hanoi Inspectorate announced the conclusion of a comprehensive inspection of investment, management, and land use in housing projects invested by Dien Bien Province Private Construction Enterprise No. 1 under Muong Thanh Group or under investment cooperation contracts in Hanoi and discovered many violations.

Muong Thanh Group invested in 12 projects in Hanoi. Hanoi Inspectorate inspected 9 projects, including: CT5 Tan Trieu; VP6 Linh Dam; HH1, HH2, HH3, HH4 in CC6 of Linh Dam Lake residential and service complex; CT6 Kien Hung, VP5 Linh Dam and VP3 Linh Dam. The remaining three projects (including Xa La urban area; CT11, CT12 projects of Kim Van - Kim Lu urban area, Hoang Mai district; Dai Thanh project, Thanh Tri district) were inspected by the Government Inspectorate .

The inspection showed that all 9 projects had many serious violations of the Investment Law, Land Law, Housing Law, Real Estate Business Law, and Tax Administration Law.

Comparing the detailed planning at a scale of 1/500, 9/9 projects have serious planning violations such as: increasing the height of the building; increasing the construction area of the base block, tower block, basement; changing the purpose of use from office, commercial services to residential apartments; building a large number of apartments, with some projects increasing the number of approved apartments by 6 times.

Specifically, VP3 Linh Dam project increased its height from 29 to 32 floors, and the number of apartments increased from 192 to 451, exceeding the planned number by 259. VP5 Linh Dam project also increased its height from 29 to 33 floors, and the number of apartments increased from 216 to 805.

VP6 Linh Dam project increased the height from 25 to 37 floors, increased the number of apartments from 138 to 840, exceeding 702 apartments. HH3 and HH1 buildings were approved to have 816 apartments each, making each building 2,000 apartments. The total number of apartments in 12 buildings is more than 8,896 with a population of about 26,688 people, 4 times higher than the approved population size of 6,300 people.

With a land area of only 42,260 m2, the HH buildings have a population equal to the entire Hoang Liet ward, breaking planning targets, causing overload of traffic infrastructure, social infrastructure, schools, and kindergartens in the area.

CT5 Tan Trieu project also increased the number of apartments from 492 to 846, exceeding 354 apartments.