25,000 overseas Vietnamese deported for law violations since 2018

"Vietnamese abroad have become the main subjects of investigation for authorities during campaigns to search for illegal workers, and have frequently been mentioned in the media, negatively affecting the image of Vietnamese workers," Luong Tam Quang, Deputy Minister of Public Security, said at a Hanoi conference Wednesday.

Quang said Vietnamese workers were illegally staying in many countries and territories like Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the U.S. and Europe. In Europe, the illegal workers were mostly in the U.K., France or Germany, while more of them were going to Australia, the Middle East and Africa, he added.

"Since 2018, we’ve cooperated to investigate, verify and deal with around 800 cases of Vietnamese abroad violating the law per requests by local authorities. We’ve also received over 25,000 deported citizens," he said.

Quang said there were crime rings that utilized social media to entice Vietnamese to go to certain Southeast Asian countries for work and instead, sell them to casinos.

Vietnam still lacks regulations to deal with the consequences of law violations in foreign countries as also deterrence for businesses at home that fail to prevent their employees from violating laws in foreign countries, he said.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son said there might be only a few Vietnamese committing crimes abroad, but they affect the reputation of the entire Vietnamese community in foreign countries.

There are currently around 5.3 million Vietnamese living and working in around 130 countries and territories. The State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese said 80 percent of the diaspora live in developed countries.