Court considering alleged boat buyback scam

    A boat owner is trying to sue a woman in My Tho for allegedly absconding with US$90,000 he gave her to buy back his boats, which were confiscated in Indonesia.
The court is considering the case, it would be difficult to process, according to a local lawyer.

Truong Van Giai said that last year Vo Thi Thanh Binh had promised to help him get back his three fishing boats, which had been confiscated for violating Indonesian waters in May 2006.

Binh had received $90,000 to buy the boats but done nothing, Giai said, adding that he had had to travel to Indonesia this year to buy back the boats himself.

Contract breach

Giai said he had handed Binh the money in two installments.

He first gave her $70,000 when the two sides signed a contract on July 4, 2006, he said.

According to him, in May this year he gave her the rest when she said she had already obtained the boats.

Giai also presented another contract dated May 12, 2007 in which Binh had written that she had received from Giai $90,000 and committed to returning to him the amount “if the work is not done by May 20, 2007.” However, Giai said he had waited in vain for three months after that.

On August 25, he went to Indonesia to buy back the boats, which he brought home on September 4, he said.

He then filed a law suit against Binh, demanding that she return his $90,000.

Done deal

Binh’s version of the story was quite different.

She said Giai had met her in June 2006 to ask for help.

She had then taken him to Jakarta and introduced him to men who she said could help get his boats back.

After returning to Vietnam, Giai and Binh signed a contract in which Binh would help deliver Giai’s $70,000 to the Indonesian men.

Giai himself would directly hand the last $20,000 to them when he went to Indonesia’s Batam island to receive the boats.

For security, Binh gave Giai her land certificate.

If she could neither fulfill the contract nor pay back the money, she was to lose her land, according to Binh’s version of the agreement.

If the deal was done, she was to receive a payment of $7,000, she said.

She said that an Indonesian man named Pon Mei Siregar had bought the boats when Indonesian authorities auctioned them in May last year.

In July last year, Binh said, she handed Siregar $70,000 in Jakarta for the auction certificates for Giai’s boats.

She said she had then given Giai the winning auction certificates for the three boats and that her job was therefore complete.

Giai was supposed to go to Indonesia to collect the boats on May 21, 2007, but he did not.

Binh said that Giai wanted to breach the contract after he read on the certificates that the Indonesian men had won the auction at the total price of only $22,000.

However, Binh did not have any explanation for why she had written in the May 2007 contract that she had received $90,000 when she now claims to have only received $70,000.

A lawyer told Thanh Nien that it would be hard for the case to be processed without the presence of the Indonesian nationals involved.

As Giai now has his boats, the contract would be considered delivered if Giai could not prove that he had acquired the boats by himself, he added.

(Thanh Nien News, December 11, 2007)