Man arrested in bogus labor export scam

The police arrested Nguyen Van Thin at his home in Cua Lo town on Monday for an investigation into accusations that he has swindled many people who wanted to be sent abroad for work under a labor export program.

Thin would be detained for four months, investigators said.

Thin told his victims to pay him a fee of US$6,000 in exchange for being sent to Angola for work with high salaries.

After receiving money from many people, he managed to send his victims to Angola but then abandoned them there.

To survive, these victims had to take any jobs they could and had to avoid being arrested by police since they were illegal immigrants.

Among these victims, Nguyen Cong Nguyen, of Nghe An, later died of malaria in Angola.

According to investigators, after being left alone in the African country without food and accommodation, Nguyen had to live as a wanderer and then contracted the deadly disease.     

Police said they are expanding their investigation as the case involves many other people.

According to a report by the Department for Overseas Labor Management, three Vietnamese workers died in Angola in the first months of 2013, taking the death toll since 2012 to 21.

All of them had been sent into the country via unofficial or illegal means, since Vietnam and Angola have yet to sign any treaty on labor export, Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, head of the department, explained.

When arriving in Angola illegally, many Vietnamese workers did not receive working conditions or salary levels as promised, Quynh said.

Therefore, many people had to quit their job and sought other works despite harmful working environments.

Moreover, many workers were not accepted by the companies, so they had to seek jobs by themselves and became illegal workers.

In addition, they also suffered risks of contracting communicable diseases like malaria or fall victim to robbery or violence.