Two Dong Nai senior cops with greased palms disciplined

On May 8, Dong Nai Police decided to take the disciplinary action of transferring Lt. Col. Pham Hai Cang (Team 2 vice-captain) and Lt. Col. Phan Cam Tu (Team 1 vice-captain) out of the traffic department to the mobile police unit for letting vehicles violating traffic regulations to go free.

Earlier, Cang had been demoted from captain to vice-captain and Tu had received a warning for their violations.

The actions against the two cops arise of accusations of corruption made in October 2019. Two Dong Nai traffic cops accused their superiors, Cang and Tu, of frequently letting violators off the hook because they "have paid the team."

According to a traffic police captain who had worked with Team 2 of the Dong Nai Police Department, the unit responsible for patrolling National Highway 20 that connects the province with the Central Highlands' Da Lat Town, his patrol had arrested overloaded vehicles many times, only for superiors to let them go because "they had paid."

Just minutes after they made the arrest, a leader of Team 2 would call, name the registration number of the overloaded vehicle, and order the patrol team to let it go.

Two months later, Cang and Tu were suspended from work.

After verification of the allegations, Major General Nguyen Ngoc Hieu, Deputy Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Public Security, had said that "there are reasons" to believe that the two senior cops were guilty.

It has been alleged many times that businesses bribe police officers for overlooking overloading and other violations on the nation’s highways.