HANOI: A court in Vietnam on Dec 27 jailed more than a dozen officials for up to 12 years for corruption over repatriation flights and quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The case is part of a major anti-graft drive that has led to the resignation of a president and two deputy prime ministers in a country where political changes are usually carefully orchestrated.
In 2023, 54 officials and businesspeople were found guilty of receiving, offering or acting as go-between for bribes that state media said totalled US$9.5 million.
They included four former senior officials at the ministries of foreign affairs, health and public security, who were handed life sentences.
At the height of the pandemic in early 2020, Vietnam had closed its borders to almost everyone bar returning citizens.
The defendants in the two cases were accused of giving or taking bribes to help people get seats on repatriation flights and receive medical quarantines.
At the time, returnees faced complicated entry procedures, expensive flights and quarantine costs.
The defendants took advantage of policies by the party, state and their positions to agree on bribes and did wrong in bringing back citizens for medical quarantine, Cong Ly newspaper quoted the Dec 27 verdict as saying.
Tran Tung, a former official for northern Thai Nguyen province, was found guilty of taking around US$300,000 in bribes and commission for organising quarantine facilities.
He was given 12 years in jail for receiving bribes and abuse of power.
Sixteen other transport ministry, provincial officials and travel company employees were sentenced to up to three and a half years in jail on charges including bribery and abuse of power.
In 2023, a Hanoi mother told AFP how she had spent over US$10,000 to get her teenage daughter back to Vietnam from a boarding school in Europe at the peak of the pandemic.
The graft allegations come as part of an anti-corruption drive that has uncovered a number of deals done during Vietnams pandemic response.
In 2023, the National Assembly removed former foreign affairs minister Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam, who oversaw the COVID-19 pandemic response, from their positions as deputy prime ministers.
The crackdown also brought down president Nguyen Xuan Phuc after he took political responsibility for various officials shortcomings.
According to the public security ministry, in 2024, police put 825 cases under their radar, with 1,676 people on corruption accusations, an increase of more than 16% compared to 2023.