AIC's ex-chairwoman got 10 years for rigging a Vietnamese monitoring-station bid

On August 12, 2026, the People's Court of Ca Mau Province sentenced Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, former chairwoman and general director of Advanced International Joint Stock Company (AIC), to 10 years in prison for 'violating bidding regulations, causing serious consequences' under Article 222, Clause 3 of Vietnam's 2015 Penal Code. The case centred on a procurement package to supply and install equipment for three automatic surface-water monitoring stations in the former Bac Lieu Province, which caused losses of more than VNĐ4.44 billion (US$168,000) to the state budget.

Investigators identified Nhan as the mastermind who directed the establishment of a network of 'dummy' companies to bid in packages nationwide, manipulating procedures to help AIC win contracts. For the Bac Lieu package, she authorised deputy general director Tran Manh Ha and former project-office deputy head Le Thi Linh Nhung to run the bidding: companies within AIC's network posed as rival bidders, quotations were inflated, and the project owner and a valuation company colluded as fabricated quotations were submitted.

AIC also adjusted its financial statements and fabricated a 2014 audit report to meet bidding qualification requirements, and won the package. Former provincial natural resources director Pham Quoc Nam received four years for directing procedures in AIC's favour; his chief accountant Bui Thi Kim Em drew three years and six months; appraiser Nguyen Minh Tam and Southeast Asia Company's Ho Tan Manh were jailed for violating valuation principles. Ha was sentenced to seven years, Nhung to three and a half.

Sham bidders from inside AIC's own network created the appearance of competition the tender never had.

A fabricated audit report was used to clear the qualification hurdle the rigged quotes could not.

Collusion with the project owner and the valuation company corrupted the pricing reference itself.

The scheme's paper trail — inflated quotations and adjusted financials — became the prosecution's evidence.

A dummy-bidder network only works while everyone stays quiet: fabricated audit reports and inflated quotes left a paper trail that a single provincial trial turned into a decade of prison time.

All seven defendants were convicted of violating bidding regulations. Nhan and Tran Manh Ha are wanted internationally by the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Police Agency.