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Cập nhật: 07:14 GMT - thứ hai, 4 tháng 7, 2011
Báo Úc tiếp tục đưa tin về vụ in tiền polymer của Ngân hàng Nhà nước Việt Nam, với chi tiết mới nói người môi giới Lương Ngọc Anh là đại tá ngành an ninh.
Tờ The Age tiếp tục loạt bài về cáo buộc tham nhũng liên quan các quan chức cao cấp ngành ngân hàng, trong đó có cựu Thống đốc Lê Đức Thúy, với bài mới ra hôm thứ Hai 04/07/2011 dưới tựa đề 'Bê bối hối lộ vươn ra tới một đại tá tình báo'.
Trong bài báo, hai phóng viên Nick McKenzie và Richard Baker nói ông Lương Ngọc Anh, Tổng Giám đốc công ty TNHH Phát triển Công nghệ CFTD vốn đóng vai trò trung gian trong việc công ty Securency in tiền polymer cho Việt Nam, là nhân viên tình báo, cấp bậc đại tá.
Trước đó, The Age đã cáo giác ông Lương Ngọc Anh là người của cơ quan an ninh Việt Nam, nhưng chưa rõ cấp bậc.
Nay các phóng viên cho hay quan chức thương mại Australia đã tiếp xúc với ông tổng cộng 18 lần trước khi giới thiệu ông cho công ty Securency, chuyên cung cấp giấy và dịch vụ in tiền polymer.
Vụ cáo buộc công ty này, trực thuộc Ngân hàng dự trữ Úc (RBA), hối lộ quan chức ngân hàng các nước trong đó có Việt Nam vẫn đang được điều tra và các quan chức nói đây là vụ điều tra hối lộ lớn nhất nước từ trước tới nay.
Báo The Age cũng tiết lộ rằng cảnh sát liên bang đã điều tra một đại diện thương mại của Úc, hiện còn đương chức ở châu Á, trong vụ này.
Hai hôm trước, ngày 02/07, cũng tờ The Age đã nêu đích danh tên của cựu Thống đốc Ngân hàng Nhà nước Việt Nam Lê Đức Thúy trong một danh sách ba quan chức nước ngoài mà Securency đã 'mua chuộc' được bằng 'tiền hoa hồng'.
Tờ báo có trụ sở tại Melbourne đưa ra chi tiết về vị quan chức Việt Nam: "Cựu Thống đốc Ngân hàng Nhà nước Việt Nam Lê Đức Thúy, một trong những quan chức giàu quyền lực nhất của đất nước và là người mà Securency bị cáo buộc đã hối lộ vào năm 2003 bằng việc trả các học phí cho con trai ông này du học tại Đại học Durham, Anh."
Vai trò chủ chốt
The Age nói 'vị đại tá' Lương Ngọc Anh hiện vẫn chưa bị chính quyền Việt Nam thẩm vấn. Tờ báo này còn nhận xét rằng nhà chức trách Việt Nam vẫn "từ chối hỗ trợ phía Úc trong cuộc điều tra toàn cầu".
Báo này viết: "Các cựu quan chức thương mại và ngoại giao Australia đã xác nhận một cách riêng tư rằng nhân vật môi giới của Securency Lương Ngọc Anh là đại tá ngành an ninh và điều này đã được Đại sứ quán Úc ở Hà Nội biết từ khi cơ quan đại diện thương mại Austrade giới thiệu ông ta và công ty CFTD của ông làm trung gian vào năm 2002".
Theo luật Úc, việc công ty nước này thuê quan chức nước ngoài làm môi giới có trả tiền bị coi là trái phép. Thêm vào đó, Securency còn bị cáo buộc đã chuyển cho 'đại tá Lương Ngọc Anh' tới 20 triệu đôla Úc, đa số đó là để hối lộ.
Đổi lại, ông Anh đã giúp Securency thắng hợp đồng khổng lồ in tiền polymer cho Việt Nam.
Trong bài báo mới ra, The Age không nhắc tới chi tiết mà cũng chính báo này cáo giác trước đó, rằng ông Lương Ngọc Anh "có quan hệ thân cận với Thủ tướng Nguyễn Tấn Dũng từ hồi ông Dũng còn giữ chức Thống đốc Ngân hàng Nhà nước và quan hệ làm ăn với Securency bắt đầu".
Ông Lương Ngọc Anh từng được báo điện tử Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam ca tụng như một tấm gương doanh nhân thành đạt. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/assets/images/2009/11/04/091104104724_466-262-anh.jpg)
Ông bị cáo buộc đã sử dụng một phần trong số tiền môi giới để trả học phí cho con trai của ông Lê Đức Thúy.
Các chi tiết mới được The Age tung ra là:
Vào tháng 11/1999, 'đại tá Lương Ngọc Anh' được mời tới Australia tham dự hội thảo của Austrade về thị trường Việt Nam.
Tháng 8/2008, ông đã là đại biểu của một ủy ban hợp tác Kinh tế-Thương mại Việt-Úc, nhiều lần tham dự họp hành chiêu đãi với sứ quán nước này.
Tài liệu nội bộ Austrade từ 1998 trở đi còn nói ông Anh có "quan hệ gia đình ở một số bộ ngành quan trọng". Cha ông được cho là có quan hệ rộng và bố vợ ông là quan chức công an cao cấp.
Các cơ quan công quyền Việt Nam hiện chưa có phản ứng gì trước các thông tin đưa ra ở trên.
Vụ tai tiếng hối lộ của công ty Securency với các quan chức Việt Nam và nước ngoài trong các thương vụ hoa hồng in tiền Polymer giai đoạn từ 1999 tới 2005 đã bị tờ The Age phát giác từ tháng 5/2009.
Các phát giác gây tác động lớn tại Úc và đã kéo các cơ quan điều tra, an ninh và tư pháp của nước này vào cuộc.
Báo The Age cho biết phóng sự điều tra của báo đã được cảnh sát sử dụng cho cuộc điều tra liên quốc gia. Chính quyền Indonesia và Malaysia miễn cưỡng hợp tác với cuộc điều tra, trong khi Việt Nam thì từ chối.
Ông Lê Đức Thúy làm Thống đốc Ngân hàng Nhà nước Việt Nam trong 8 năm, từ năm 1999. Người tiền nhiệm của ông là đương kim Thủ tướng VN, ông Nguyễn Tấn Dũng.
Sau khi ông Thúy thôi chức Thống đốc, Thủ tướng Chính phủ tiếp tục bổ nhiệm ông, từ tháng 3/2008 tới 05/2011 làm Chủ tịch Ủy ban Giám sát tài chính quốc gia.
Các bài liên quan :
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Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie
July 4, 2011
July 4, 2011
AUSTRALIAN trade officials met or spoke with a colonel from a Vietnamese spy agency 18 times before suggesting to a Reserve Bank currency firm that it hire him as an agent in an arrangement that is now expected to lead to more corruption charges as part of the nation's biggest bribery probe.
The Age can also reveal that the federal police investigated an Austrade commissioner, who is still serving in Asia, after uncovering information about Austrade's role in assisting banknote firm Securency International provide overseas travel for Vietnamese officials.
The revelation of Austrade's intimate role in Securency's allegedly corrupt Vietnam dealings comes just hours after German police swooped on a former senior sales executive from Note Printing Australia (NPA), the second RBA banknote company accused of bribing overseas officials.
The dramatic weekend arrest of Christian Boilott over his alleged role in a conspiracy to bribe overseas officials while working for NPA came just before his yacht was to sail in a contest in Boltenhagen, in Germany.
Mr Boilott, whom Australian authorities will seek to extradite, is the ninth man to be charged around the globe for an alleged role in the banknote companies' bribery scandal, with six Victorians and two Malaysians arrested on Friday.
The Vietnamese colonel also suspected of playing a key role in a bribery scheme allegedly driven by Reserve Bank companies Securency and NPA is yet to be questioned by Vietnamese authorities, who have so far declined to assist Australia in the global inquiry.
Former Australian diplomatic and trade officials have privately confirmed that Securency agent Anh Ngoc Luong's status as a colonel in Vietnam's spy agency, the Ministry of Public Security, was well known to the Australian embassy in Hanoi when Austrade suggested Securency appoint him and his company, CFTD, as its agent in 2002.
Information released by Austrade and the Department of Foreign Affairs to Liberal senator Russell Trood shows that Australian officials in Hanoi met or spoke to Luong 18 times between 1999 and 2001.
It is illegal for an Australian company to hire a foreign official as its paid agent, and Luong's appointment is suspected to have begun one of the highest paying bribery arrangements that Securency set up across the globe, paying the colonel up to $20 million, much of it in suspected bribes.
In return, he helped Securency win a massive contract to switch Vietnam's banknotes from paper to plastic.
Australian embassy staff in Hanoi continued to have close dealings, including intimate dinners, with Colonel Luong even after an Austrade commissioner formally warned Canberra and the RBA in 2007 and 2008 that he was a high-ranking Ministry of Public Security officer. The ministry is Vietnam's internal security and counter-espionage agency.
This information was also made available to the Securency board at that time. The board did not ask Securency management to end its arrangement with Colonel Luong.
The Austrade commissioner investigated by the AFP over Securency's Vietnam dealings is understood to have helped arrange visas for Vietnamese officials to enter the United States on a brief Securency-funded holiday.
The Austrade official has not been charged. Other Austrade officials have also given statements to the AFP.
The revelation of Austrade's intimate involvement with Securency's Vietnam affairs is likely to increase pressure on the Gillard government to agree with a push by Greens leader Bob Brown for a parliamentary inquiry into the roles of the trade agency and the RBA in the bribery scandal.
A senior federal government official has told The Age that if an inquiry was held into Austrade's relationship with Securency and Note Printing Australia ''it would emerge that the Australian government has sanctioned and engaged in corruption''.
A high-ranking Austrade
manager has separately told The Age that ''in the case of Securency … there is no doubt as to Austrade's complicity as the agency not only made the introductions to CFTD but advised on how to deal with them''.
The RBA owns half of Securency and all of NPA. During the period of the alleged bribery, both companies were chaired by former deputy RBA governor Graeme Thompson and had other senior RBA officials as directors.
In Vietnam, Securency has been charged with bribing former Vietnamese central bank governor Le Duc Thuy by providing a scholarship for his son to study at an exclusive English university. Mr Thuy remains a senior figure in the Vietnamese government and chairs the National Committee for Financial Supervision.
Colonel Luong is believed to have used some of the commissions paid to him and CFTD by Securency to fund the education of Mr Thuy's son. Bribery in Vietnam carries the death penalty.
Austrade deemed the partnership between Securency and Colonel Luong's CFTD firm to be so successful that it presented them with a special export award in 2004.
In November 1999, Colonel Luong was invited to Australia as part of an Austrade seminar on the Vietnam market. In August 2008, he was part of an Australia-Vietnam Joint Trade and Economic Co-operation Committee delegation - months after Austrade's commissioner in Vietnam warned of his links to the Ministry of Public Security. Colonel Luong also attended several lunches and dinners hosted by the Australian embassy.
He twice met embassy officials in the months after The Age broke the Securency bribery story and named him as an agent in May 2009.
The Age has previously reported on internal Austrade documents from 1998 that reveal Colonel Luong was known as having ''family relations in various key [government] ministries''. They also detail how he had a ''well-connected'' father and a ''father-in-law [who] is minister of interior''.
In an interview with a Vietnamese journalist in 2007, Securency executives said the services provided by Colonel Luong and his company primarily involved translation, organising meetings and picking people up from the airport.
The AFP's investigation into Securency and NPA remains ongoing and further charges against other former executives are expected.
Britain's Serious Fraud Office is investigating Securency's contracts in Nigeria, which involved nearly $20 million in commission payments to a network of agents and offshore bank accounts.
Austrade declined to comment, citing the ongoing police probe.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/bribe-scandal-extends-to-vietnamese-spy-colonel-20110703-1gxca.html
The Age can also reveal that the federal police investigated an Austrade commissioner, who is still serving in Asia, after uncovering information about Austrade's role in assisting banknote firm Securency International provide overseas travel for Vietnamese officials.
The revelation of Austrade's intimate role in Securency's allegedly corrupt Vietnam dealings comes just hours after German police swooped on a former senior sales executive from Note Printing Australia (NPA), the second RBA banknote company accused of bribing overseas officials.
The dramatic weekend arrest of Christian Boilott over his alleged role in a conspiracy to bribe overseas officials while working for NPA came just before his yacht was to sail in a contest in Boltenhagen, in Germany.
Mr Boilott, whom Australian authorities will seek to extradite, is the ninth man to be charged around the globe for an alleged role in the banknote companies' bribery scandal, with six Victorians and two Malaysians arrested on Friday.
The Vietnamese colonel also suspected of playing a key role in a bribery scheme allegedly driven by Reserve Bank companies Securency and NPA is yet to be questioned by Vietnamese authorities, who have so far declined to assist Australia in the global inquiry.
Former Australian diplomatic and trade officials have privately confirmed that Securency agent Anh Ngoc Luong's status as a colonel in Vietnam's spy agency, the Ministry of Public Security, was well known to the Australian embassy in Hanoi when Austrade suggested Securency appoint him and his company, CFTD, as its agent in 2002.
Information released by Austrade and the Department of Foreign Affairs to Liberal senator Russell Trood shows that Australian officials in Hanoi met or spoke to Luong 18 times between 1999 and 2001.
It is illegal for an Australian company to hire a foreign official as its paid agent, and Luong's appointment is suspected to have begun one of the highest paying bribery arrangements that Securency set up across the globe, paying the colonel up to $20 million, much of it in suspected bribes.
In return, he helped Securency win a massive contract to switch Vietnam's banknotes from paper to plastic.
Australian embassy staff in Hanoi continued to have close dealings, including intimate dinners, with Colonel Luong even after an Austrade commissioner formally warned Canberra and the RBA in 2007 and 2008 that he was a high-ranking Ministry of Public Security officer. The ministry is Vietnam's internal security and counter-espionage agency.
This information was also made available to the Securency board at that time. The board did not ask Securency management to end its arrangement with Colonel Luong.
The Austrade commissioner investigated by the AFP over Securency's Vietnam dealings is understood to have helped arrange visas for Vietnamese officials to enter the United States on a brief Securency-funded holiday.
The Austrade official has not been charged. Other Austrade officials have also given statements to the AFP.
The revelation of Austrade's intimate involvement with Securency's Vietnam affairs is likely to increase pressure on the Gillard government to agree with a push by Greens leader Bob Brown for a parliamentary inquiry into the roles of the trade agency and the RBA in the bribery scandal.
A senior federal government official has told The Age that if an inquiry was held into Austrade's relationship with Securency and Note Printing Australia ''it would emerge that the Australian government has sanctioned and engaged in corruption''.
A high-ranking Austrade
manager has separately told The Age that ''in the case of Securency … there is no doubt as to Austrade's complicity as the agency not only made the introductions to CFTD but advised on how to deal with them''.
The RBA owns half of Securency and all of NPA. During the period of the alleged bribery, both companies were chaired by former deputy RBA governor Graeme Thompson and had other senior RBA officials as directors.
In Vietnam, Securency has been charged with bribing former Vietnamese central bank governor Le Duc Thuy by providing a scholarship for his son to study at an exclusive English university. Mr Thuy remains a senior figure in the Vietnamese government and chairs the National Committee for Financial Supervision.
Colonel Luong is believed to have used some of the commissions paid to him and CFTD by Securency to fund the education of Mr Thuy's son. Bribery in Vietnam carries the death penalty.
Austrade deemed the partnership between Securency and Colonel Luong's CFTD firm to be so successful that it presented them with a special export award in 2004.
In November 1999, Colonel Luong was invited to Australia as part of an Austrade seminar on the Vietnam market. In August 2008, he was part of an Australia-Vietnam Joint Trade and Economic Co-operation Committee delegation - months after Austrade's commissioner in Vietnam warned of his links to the Ministry of Public Security. Colonel Luong also attended several lunches and dinners hosted by the Australian embassy.
He twice met embassy officials in the months after The Age broke the Securency bribery story and named him as an agent in May 2009.
The Age has previously reported on internal Austrade documents from 1998 that reveal Colonel Luong was known as having ''family relations in various key [government] ministries''. They also detail how he had a ''well-connected'' father and a ''father-in-law [who] is minister of interior''.
In an interview with a Vietnamese journalist in 2007, Securency executives said the services provided by Colonel Luong and his company primarily involved translation, organising meetings and picking people up from the airport.
The AFP's investigation into Securency and NPA remains ongoing and further charges against other former executives are expected.
Britain's Serious Fraud Office is investigating Securency's contracts in Nigeria, which involved nearly $20 million in commission payments to a network of agents and offshore bank accounts.
Austrade declined to comment, citing the ongoing police probe.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/bribe-scandal-extends-to-vietnamese-spy-colonel-20110703-1gxca.html
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