Did Party Secretary Le Duc Tho corrupt or take part in money laundering?

Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee of Ben Tre province Le Duc Tho

In recent days, the social network has been heated up by the information, the Central Inspection Commission proposed the Politburo to consider and decide to discipline Mr. Le Duc Tho, member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Party Committee of Ben Tre province.

According to Dan Viet newspaper on August 17, Mr. Tho’s specific crime is “serious violations of declaration and transparency of assets, income, explanation of origin and fluctuations of assets that are dishonest and incomplete.” And “Mr Tho’s behavior was blamed by the Party as badly affecting the reputation of the Party and individuals.”

According to knowledgeable people from Hanoi, the balance in Secretary Tho’s bank account is over VND3 trillion. This is quite unusual. Especially, Secretary Tho does not trade, his monthly salary is only ten million, and is not enough for drinking coffee, it is too difficult to explain this terrible balance, and why?

It is normal for entrepreneurs to have thousands of billions to do business, even a good thing, because rich people make the country strong.

However, as a senior leadership official in the Party apparatus, the Party Secretary of Ben Tre Le Duc Tho has thousands of billions in his bank account, and (rumored) also owns thousands of exchange rates. Real estate, and other assets, would be unusual.

What is worrying is that, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper reported in July 2021, when giving the decision to appoint Mr. Le Duc Tho as the Secretary of the Ben Tre Provincial Party Committee, Head of the Central Organization Commission – Ms. Truong Thi Mai – evaluates Mr. Tho as a young leader, “capable, intellectual, politically strong” and after taking office, the new Secretary Tho will “promote his capacity, devote a lot of enthusiasm to the development of Ben Tre province.” It is also a “guarantee” for a clean leader.

However, after just over two years, that “clean” leader’s assets had increased by several trillion, which the owner himself could not explain to the Central Inspection Commission.

A senior leader of the State Bank revealed to thubao.de on condition of anonymity, saying: “The balance in Mr. Tho’s personal account is very large, when asked about the origin of the transactions, then Mr. Tho answered crookedly and insincerely.”

Still according to this official, that is the reason why the Central Inspection Commission concluded: “Secretary Tho seriously violated the Party’s regulations, the State’s laws, and stipulates what party members must not do and responsibility to set an example in declaration and transparency of assets and income.” And Mr. Tho explained the origin and fluctuations of assets dishonestly, incompletely, and not in accordance with regulations.

It is known that, before being transferred to Ben Tre and holding the position of Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee in July 2021, he had three years as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Public Commercial Bank Joint Stock Vietnam (ie Vietinbank).

Mr. Le Duc Tho was born in 1970, from Phu Tho, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics. In 1991, working at Vietinbank Phu Tho, and very quickly rose to prominence as a star, promoted very quickly after obtaining a PhD in Economic Management, Advanced Political Theory.

In 2010, after 20 years of working, Mr. Tho was appointed as Deputy General Director of Vietinbank; In 2013, he was appointed Chief of Office of the State Bank of Vietnam, and less than a year later, he became a member of the Board of Directors and General Director of Vietinbank. In 2018, he became the Chairman of Vietinbank’s Board of Directors. After 3 years in this position, in 2021, Mr. Tho can join the Central Committee and be assigned to be the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee of Ben Tre Province from July 2021.

In Vietnam, the property of officials at the ministerial level, deputy minister, secretary or president at the provincial level, is largr. However, Mr. Le Duc Tho, a former banking expert, to leave thousands of billions of dong in a personal account is unusual and too subjective!

Usually, people will convert money into gold, diamonds, or real estate, or business shares in someone else’s name…

More worrying, of course, is that there is not just one person like Secretary Tho in the Party!

That is the reason why analysts suspect that, with high probability, the money stored in Secretary Tho’s bank account is money transferred in a money-laundering stage to help comrades not be exposed.

It is not difficult to find out who the source of that money is, whether it is a corrupt currency or in the process of being laundered, because it is a money transfer with information of the person transferring it.

This shows that, for a long time, the declaration of assets of party members and civil servants has been mainly for the sake of formality, and is aimed only at low-level members. As for senior leaders, forget it, because even the General Secretary said that declaring assets is inadequate, because it is related to personal information.

That is why, to date, no senior official has been disciplined for “falsifying asset declaration.”

Thoibao.de (Translated)

Kasse animation 7.8.2023