Three men jailed after admitting using passports belonging to third parties

Three Vietnamese men have been jailed after they admitted to using passports which had been issued to other people. 

27-year-old Nguyen Van Hung, a Marsaskala resident, Tran Dinh Giap, 18, residing at Zejtun, and Tran The Xuong, 54, who lives in Slovakia were arraigned separately before magistrate Kevan Azzopardi on Monday.

Inspector Frankie Sammut charged the three Vietnamese men with carrying identity documents that were not issued to them and attempting to use them to travel. The Xuong was also charged with assisting the other two men in their bid to travel under false identities and with being in possession of a third passport that had been issued to a Vietnamese woman who was not travelling with the group.

All three pleaded guilty to the charges.

The court was told that the men had attempted to use Dutch passports that had been issued to other individuals of Vietnamese extraction.

Inspector Sammut said Van Hung had been stopped while boarding a flight to Berlin after officials noted that he was not the person depicted on the passport that he had supplied to the authorities.

The inspector told the court that in recent weeks and months, a considerable number of Vietnamese nationals were coming to Malta to study English, but instead of returning to Vietnam, they would then travel onwards to Germany using third-party Dutch passports with the intention of working there. The Vietnamese community in Germany would then make arrangements for their employment, he said. 

The situation was causing embarrassment to the Maltese authorities and a loss of face with their German counterparts, added the inspector, telling the court that Malta was also being billed for the costs of their repatriation from Germany.

“As soon as we realised what was happening, we seized their passports, but after a while, they found a way to obtain other people’s passports and tried to use them to travel,” Inspector Sammut explained.

He insisted on an effective prison sentence of 6 months.

Lawyer Martin Farrugia, defence counsel to Van Hung and Giap, said he had “serious reservations about the legality of any racial profiling” that led to the arrests.

A custodial sentence did not fit the crime, he submitted.

Inspector Sammut denied the insinuation and replied that possession of another person’s passport is a crime in itself. 

The court said it was not its role to comment on the wider situation, but noted that the crime was serious and was something the legislator wanted to prevent.

First, to be arraigned was Van Hung, who was jailed for 6 months. The court ordered that his passport be immediately delivered to the Principal Immigration Officer for a decision on further action and recommended that he be held at the Young Offenders Unit.

Next to be charged was Tran Dinh Giap, 18, residing at Zejtun. He was stopped by police at the airport on August 5, when he tried to travel using a Dutch passport that wasn’t issued to him. 

Giap, whose slight build gave him an adolescent appearance, told the court that he was 18 years old, as stated on his documents when the court pointed out that he appeared to be much younger. 

He, too, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment for 6 months. 

Last to be arraigned was Tran The Xuong, 54, a Vietnamese citizen who lives in Slovakia. Before the arraignment began, lawyer Martin Farrugia informed the magistrate that he was affected by a conflict of interest. Lawyer Mattia Felice was appointed by the court as legal aid in Farrugia’s stead.

Inspector Sammut told the court that the defendant had also been arrested on August 5, while he had been accompanying Giap. He was carrying Giap’s Dutch passport, which he had also presented to immigration officials. Both men were detained and searched. 
The police found The Xuong to also be carrying a passport issued to a Vietnamese woman who was not present.

In his statement to the police the man had admitted to having received at least €20,000 for his services.

When the court asked him how he wished to plead, The Xuong pleaded guilty to the charges and confirmed his admission of guilt after being given time to reconsider.

In his submissions on punishment, Inspector Sammut said that The Xuong was the person who masterminded the crime, and insisted on a higher punishment than that received by the other two men, in order to serve as a deterrent.

Felice pointed to the defendant’s clean criminal record and the fact that he had accepted responsibility for his role in the crime. The court was also told that the man had just informed his lawyer that he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed medical condition. 

In view of the guilty plea and after considering the submissions on punishment, the court sentenced The Xuong to imprisonment for 1 year together with the payment of a €6,000 fine.

His lawyer asked that the defendant be allowed to pay the fine in installments over a two-year period. The court gave him one year to pay the fine.