Cohen Escape from Vietnam

For Some the Vietnam War Never Ended
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-4335-1
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

After the Vietnam war Nguyen Thi Lan rose from humble beginnings to become one of Vietnam's most influential women. Now Lan and her granddaughter are being hunted by the Peoples Public Security for pro-democracy activities. For in communist Vietnam, the most serious crime is advocating democracy. Those that do are considered enemies of the state. Imprisonment, torture, and execution await those unfortunate enough to be arrested. In hiding, with no means of escape, she turns to her ex- American lover, James Britton, for help as repayment of an old debt. As he now travels to Vietnam he knows it was a debt, whose details were only known to Lan and himself, that must be repaid.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cohen, Howard

Leseproben

Chapter 7 Nguyen Kao Danh Danh was ambitious and advanced through the ranks of the communist party to become the third-ranking member of the politburo. His portfolio was to oversee the ministers of finance and transportation. He was a man of great power and influence. Madam Lan used her position to establish numerous charities and was honored by the central committee on several occasions. Unfortunately, her husband, like so many Asians, was a pathologic gambler. Although gambling was banned in Vietnam until the nineties it was always present. Betting on soccer was a billion dollar illegal business. Horse racing is legal and casino gambling on a small scale was available at hotels for foreigners. Gambling across the border in Cambodia and on the internet also circumvented the laws. Danh traveled to Hong Kong often to negotiate trade agreements, arrange loans and talk with investors. Since Vietnam joined the WTO in January 2007 and began to liberalize many of its industries, ties with Hong Kong banks and investors dramatically increased. After the last meeting of the day, he would take the turbojet shuttle to make a quick fifty minute run over to Macau. Gambling in Macau began in 1850 and today it is the largest gambling center in the world. It is four times larger than Las Vegas. Revenues in 2016 were over 2.3 Billion dollars. Danh’s favorite places to gamble were the high stakes rooms at the Venetian Casino. Each table has its own luxurious suite, impeccable service, and a private chef to cook individual dishes for the players. Female companionship was available on request. Danh divided his gambling between blackjack and baccarat. Occasionally he played no limit Texas Holdem. One evening after a particularly brutal losing streak he sat at the bar drinking a dry martini. A middle eastern man who had been playing at the same black jack table joined him. He ordered a scotch neat and introduced himself to Danh. “Mohammed El-Said,” he said in a cultured British accent offering his hand. They shook, and the man said, “I have never seen such a run of bad luck as you suffered tonight.” Danh chuckled, “It was quite awful. I kept doubling thinking there had to be an end and there was none.” He finished his martini and the bartender brought another. “How do you sustain such losses Minister Danh?” El-Said replied watching the surprise register on Danh’s face. “Have we met before?” “No Minister we have not. But I am very familiar with who you are and what you do.” He smiled and after a pause in which Danh said nothing he proceeded. “I am an oil trader. Some I buy from consortiums through legal channels some I buy on the black market from pirates. It’s in the latter that I make the largest profits. Some time ago a colleague of mine recognized you and noted that you gambled for high stakes and most of the time you lost. We did a background check and discovered that you have exhausted your funds and are in debt to some shady Vietnamese individuals.” He sipped his scotch. Danh remained impassive and silent. “I would like to help you out of your predicament and make you rich at the same time.” “And how will you do that” Danh snapped, knowing full well that whatever it was had to be illegal. “In your position, you can easily obtain the names, routes and timetables of oil carriers coming to and leaving Vietnam. You will give that information to me and I will give it to those whose business it is to obtain oil on the high seas. Oil pirates were predators on many shipping lanes. Somali pirates had operated for years off the coast of Africa. Less well known are the oil pirates in the Java, Celebes and Banda seas around Indonesia. I buy the oil from them and resell it. You will get forty percent of the profits. The average tanker carries oil worth fifty to two hundred million dollars. I buy the oil for thirty cents on the dollar and sell it for seventy cents on the dollar. Even the smallest tanker would provide you with millions. More than enough to pay off your debts and gamble at your leisure.” El-Said finished his drink and waved off a refill. Danh looked defeated. “How many tankers are we talking about?” “I would be judicious. Different routes vary it among registrations and only a few tankers each year. Your money will be deposited after each sale into a bank account you set up. I suggest a bank in Macau.” “How do I get the information to you? “ “Downloaded it to a USB and a man will come to your office every Monday morning to pick it up.” In the end, Danh agreed to the deal. El-Said transferred enough money into Danh’s Macau account to pay his debts and continue to gamble. Madam Lan was aware of his serious gambling problem but had no knowledge of his criminal activities. She had tried and failed several times to obtain help for him, but he resisted any intervention. For years Danh prospered. He gambled and lost but would never be in debt again. He banked and invested the money and his fortune grew. He and El-Said partnered on other ventures. When Danh had information about impending trade agreements, manufacturing deals and other insider information he passed it onto Said who made investments through third and fourth parties. Together they became very wealthy men. Danh never told his wife about his illegal activities or the money he had sequestered in the bank in Macau. It could have gone on forever if not for an ambitious low-level employee of the transportation division. He noted the loss of a large tanker near Indonesia carrying over a hundred million dollars of Vietnamese oil. He decided to check to see if other tankers were lost in the same area, his thought being that if he identified a dangerous shipping lane he would be rewarded for his discovery and promoted. What he found was a suspicious pattern of tanker losses over the past seven years. Captains had noted the increased piracy and varied their routes however they were still hijacked. Some had gone way out of the normal shipping lanes and still were hijacked. It appeared that the pirates had knowledge of their routes. Reports were made to the department of transportation from the Vietnamese Maritime Association and were forwarded to the politburo for action. Danh received the reports, filed them, then neglected to initiate any action. He informed the Maritime Association that an investigation has been started and they would be notified of the results. The employee submitted his findings directly to the office of Public Safety and they began an investigation. Danh and El-Said had become complacent. After years of success, they had become sloppy about which routes they gave to the pirates. The investigators at Public Safety spent months tracing who had access to the information and looked at computer requests for schedules and routes. They determined that the information had been copied weekly on Danh’s computer always on a Monday. Extensive checks of Danh’s bank accounts revealed no abnormal transactions or deposits. An investigator was placed in the office as temporary help and noted over several weeks that a messenger arrived each Monday and picked up a package from Danh’s secretary. The messenger was arrested when he left the office and questioned. The package contained a USB drive with all that week’s timetables and routes for all oil tankers leaving Vietnamese ports and those arriving with refined products. Under questioning, the man explained that he worked for a messenger company and his job was to pick up packages and bring them to the main depot where they were picked up by customers or forwarded to a final address. He did not know the customers or what was in the packages. Investigators took the package and paperwork to the company depot and were told that this customer sent a messenger from another company to pick up the package. They waited until the new messenger arrived and questioned him. This messenger delivered the package to a woman in an office in downtown Hanoi. The investigators took the man to the office of a secretarial rental service. They observed him give the package to a young woman who proceeded to load the information into her computer. Before she could do anything with the file the investigators took her into custody. She explained that she was hired by the World Trading Company of Macau to download the file she received each Monday. She had been doing this every Monday for the year she had worked for the firm. Records indicated that this had been going on for at least five years. She provided the email address of the company and was released. The IT section of Public Safety went to work investigating the World Trading company of Macau. After working their way through several dummy companies, they identified an oil trading company in Indonesia called International Oil. The CEO was a Saudi citizen named Mohammed El-Said. Danh was confronted with the results of the investigation. He was accused of copying trade routes and selling them to Mohammed El-Said. The information was used to direct pirates to Vietnamese oil tankers and resulted in numerous hijackings and the deaths of several seamen. Danh’s secretary confirmed that he gave her the package each Monday. They could not reach Mr. El-Said. Danh denied that he sold anything and challenged them to produce any evidence of monetary transactions. He claimed...