[Vnbiz] Moree EEL: Money smuggler did it to help his poor village in Vietnam

Sat Aug 18 18:37:31 PDT 2007

Dear Anh Hoanh (et al implied),

Your concerns and account of your experience were heard, understood and
empathized with.

My spontaneous response was: Gad!  I've just lived as an apparent walking
bank-machine in a nation of poor people for the last 13 years and been
robbed, cheated or defrauded for significant losses more than a twice a year
each of those years.  Each time it has happened, despite diverse strategies
to prevent it, it is still an unnerving experience that always tends to
revive general prejudices in me about the peoples from whom Van Dang Tran
originates.

And, though i've never been to prison, i've been in jail for a few hours and
remain a part of the criminal element because i got caught with a few gram
of cannabis in the Canadian prairies about 25 years ago.  In my teens, i was
hauled off the street and subjected to arbitrary interrogation by the police
a half dozen times because i was assumed to be a part of the criminal
element even before i was officially indoctrinated.

Yet, despite all that, and the fact that i am also suspicious of his true
motives, i still do not *presume* Van Dang Tran is lying until proven
otherwise.  As a lawyer of the USofA, are you not obliged to do the same,
despite even your most repetitively sordid experiences?

Frankly, i find it highly ironic that the shoe now seems to have slipped
onto the other foot and i find myself having to argue for a suspension of
skepticism, if not cynicism, for some compassion in granting this guy the
benefit of the doubt, against you, A. Hoanh, our champion of compassion ad
nauseam <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_nauseam>.

So, ignoring mere speculation about Van Dang Tran's honesty or lack thereof,
or other diversions, or, perhaps, even siding with 'Judge Stephen Norrish
[who heard the case and] was satisfied, however, that Tran was "lured for
altruistic reasons"', iff <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/iff> we could
simply assume for the sake of our own edification that Van Dang Tran was a
Robin Hood rather than a robbin' hood, again i ask, which might have had or
should have had primacy for (even presumably) altruistic criminals like Van
Dang Tran or Robin Hood?  Ethics, economics or law?

The implied context of the question is again our own recent thread on the
subject.  One tentatively foreseen conclusion was a sketchy socio-economic
argument for isolated cases of civil disobedience against the Law, similar
to prior arguments by JS Mill, Henry David Thoreau and Pierre
Elliot-Trudeau.

On 8/18/07, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear brother Andi & CACC,
>
> Interesting story.  But I don't really buy his excuses.  I think he is
> lying.
>
> First, transporting 6.5 million dollars and getting only $50K in
> commission is absurd.  Criminal activities pay much higher than that.  A 10%
> commission, that would be $650K, 3% would be $195K.  $50K is in no way
> within the range.  And this is an experienced pilot, he is not so stupid as
> to do crimes at peanut price.  He is lying to the authorities and have
> hundreds of thousands of dollars still stacked up in Vietnam somewhere.  You
> will see he spend that money after he gets out of jail.
>
> Second, he needs money for a community project so he commits crimes?  That
> is unreal.  Ethical people commit crime, if they do, only because they are
> pressed into it by really pressing need, such as they have to eat to
> survive, they need food and medicine for their children, not for something
> as vague as "a building for his poor village."  For that kind  project, he
> can do it fairly easily by just organizing a volunteer group, motivate
> people and raise funds.  I am sure that as a pilot he can easily motivate
> the airlines and airlines workers into supporting that project. There is no
> need at all for money laundering.
>
> If you visit prison, Andi, most of the hard-core criminals in prison will
> tell you that "I didn't do it, they framed me"  or "the stupid police
> confused me with someone else" or "I did it but just to help the city get
> rid of criminals."  Rarely you will find a criminal that simply says "Mea
> Culpa, meaculpa, mea culpa."
>
> I am not being cynical.  I am in the legal work for so long that I just
> have to have a very good sense of whether someone is telling the truth or
> lying.
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
>
>
> On 8/18/07, AD Marshall <admarshall at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
> >
> > Another recent incident that might be interesting to try fit into the
> > ethics, economics or law (EEL ;)) thread (under "Intel Vietnam refuses to
> > pay bribes") -- from http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/money-smuggler-did-it-to-help-his-poor-village-in-vietnam/2007/08/17/1186857771523.html
> >   (See BeLow.)
> >
> > Which had or should have had primacy for Van Dang Tran -- or other
> > criminal entrepreneurs likening Robin Hood?  Ethics, economics or law?
> >
> > Money smuggler did it to help his poor village in Vietnam
> > Jennifer Cooke, August 18, 2007
> >
> > A SOVIET-TRAINED Vietnamese former wing commander, who once flew
> > dignitaries including Alexander Downer, was jailed yesterday for his part in
> > a smuggling scheme in which more than $93 million was transported out of
> > Australia.
> >
> > Van Dang Tran, a pilot with Vietnam Airlines until his arrest at Sydney
> > Airport last year with more than $540,000 in his cabin luggage, was
> > sentenced to 4½ years' jail over 18 separate undeclared transports of cash
> > to Vietnam, totalling $6.499 million, between July 2005 and June last year.
> > Judge Stephen Norrish was satisfied, however, that Tran was "lured for
> > altruistic reasons" in wanting to borrow $50,000 - about what he earned in
> > illegal commissions - for a building project in his poor childhood village
> > outside Hanoi.
> >
> > The youngest of 11 siblings, Tran, 38, had been put in touch with the
> > proprietors of the Long Thanh Money Transfer Company in Footscray, Melbourne
> > which had three subsidiaries including in Cabramatta and Bankstown from
> > which he collected a total of $6.499 million and took all but the $540,000
> > found in his luggage to Vietnam.
> >
> > Electronic and physical surveillance involving the Footscray
> > money-lending business revealed Vietnam Airlines flight crew members had
> > allegedly moved large amounts of cash linked to drug deals out of Australia
> > and Tran was used regularly, the court was told.
> >
> > Tran refused to provide investigators from an Australian Crime
> > Commission task force with any names of crew members allegedly involved.
> >
> > He pleaded guilty to one charge of reckless money laundering of more
> > than $1 million under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act. The sentence
> > stipulated a non-parole period of 2½ years.
> >
> >
> > 1st best guess: Each person's economic thinking constantly weighs the
> > expected risks of any foreseen costs of breaching ethics and/or laws against
> > the imagined benefits of doing so as each trade-off arises between the two
> > (cost and benefits foreseen) and sometimes makes rational, righteous Robin
> > Hoods of the more courageous among us, good or bad, smart or dumb...
> > successfully unknown or renowned by their failures...
> >
> > Bonus guess:
> >
> >    - The ethical and economic responses are first innate autonomic
> >    reactions to feelings then evolve with experience, with ethics being always
> >    being more emotionally influenced, from day one, and economic rationales
> >    usually becoming more rational and less emotionally influenced, from day
> >    one, too;
> >    - laws are later born of the ethical and economic positions of a
> >    nation's most powerful peoples;
> >    - then all three become interdependent and evolve and devolve in
> >    response to mass socio-economic responses (including those ethical and
> >    legal), with the laws always lagging the average socio-economic response,
> >    legal or rebelliously not.
> >
> >
>
> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
> Washington DC
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