Vietnamese businesswoman Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, an arms dealer who is on Hanoi’s wanted list for corruption, has been given top-level protection in Germany, the influential Bild newspaper reported.
According to Bild’s exclusive report “Arms dealer Nguyen T. is the best-guarded woman in Germany,” Nhan has been in a safe house at an undisclosed location under the strict protection of German security authorities.
“Her knowledge of secret arms deals makes her a target of foreign secret services,” the newspaper said.
In Vietnam, Nhan – former chairwoman of a trading company called AIC – is on a police wanted list after being accused of several instances of corruption and she was sentenced in absentia in 2023 to 30 years in prison for bid rigging and bribery.
However, her involvement in the murky world of international arms dealing and alleged connection with Vietnam’s incumbent prime minister is the real reason that she is at high risk of being abducted by Vietnamese agents, the German tabloid alleged.
In 2022, Vietnamese police issued an arrest warrant for Nhan for her involvement in a medical supplies provision contract.
Since then, Nhan has been prosecuted in five different corruption cases and convicted in four of them, all in absentia as she had already fled Vietnam, first to Japan, then the United Kingdom and Germany.
According to Bild, the former businesswoman arrived in Frankfurt in the summer of 2023 and turned herself in to German authorities. who moved her to a safe house that was once a brothel but redeveloped by the security service into “a fortress,” with cameras and armed guards.
The newspaper alleged that Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office had spent “millions of euros” on her hideout and protection. In return, Nhan is believed to have given German authorities information on arms deals between Russia, China and Vietnam, including details of weapon systems, supply chains, money flows and the participating companies.
Radio Free Asia was not able to contact relevant German authorities to ask about the case.
Extradition denied
Israeli media previously reported on Nhan’s role as an intermediary for arms procurement from Israel to Vietnam, including surface-to-air missiles, spy satellites, drones and other weapon systems.
There were also rumors of her involvement in negotiations between Vietnamese defense officials and their French partners, though RFA could not independently verify them.
In recent years, Hanoi has been seeking to diversify arms sources to reduce its reliance on Moscow, its traditional partner and main supplier of weapons.
Another German news outlet, Die Tageszeitung, or Taz, reported in August 2023 that Germany had rejected a Vietnamese extradition request for Nhan.
The German government also warned Vietnam of “serious diplomatic consequences” should it attempt to abduct her, saying that it “will not tolerate any foreign countries’ interferences in German territory,” it reported.
In 2017, Vietnamese agents kidnapped former oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh in Berlin and his illegal rendition back to Vietnam caused a deep diplomatic rift between the countries. Germany expelled two Vietnamese diplomats and convicted two other people over the abduction.
Nhan’s case also shines a spotlight on Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who served as the Communist Party chief in Quang Ninh province from 2011 to 2015 when Nhan and her company were found guilty of rigging bidding procedures to win a contract to supply medical equipment to a hospital, causing damages worth US$2 million, the court in which she was sentenced in absentia to prison for 30 years was told at the time.
The conviction raised questions about connections between Chinh and the businesswoman.
As the political scene in Vietnam heats up ahead of an all-important Party Congress in early 2026, Nhan’s name could resurface in discussions of her former associates’ political ambitions.
Edited by Mike Firn.