Former Thanh Hóa vice chairman sentenced to three years for improperly approving sand mining

On the afternoon of November 13, 2026, the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Lê Đức Giang, a former vice chairman of Thanh Hóa Province, to three years in prison for violating regulations on the management and use of state assets, causing losses and waste. A former deputy director of Thanh Hóa Province’s Department of Agriculture and Environment was sentenced to 30 months in prison in the same case.

The case concerned a permit granted to Công ty Thiên An Phát to mine sand at a site in Thiệu Tân Commune, Thanh Hóa Province. The court found that, when the company applied for the permit, its director, Nguyễn Xuân Tùng, asked Lê Đức Giang, then vice chairman of the Thanh Hóa Provincial People’s Committee, to help. Officials approved the application despite multiple omissions in its documentation. Giang then signed a permit authorizing the extraction of more than 147,000 cubic meters of sand, although only about 46,000 cubic meters remained at the site.

The improper permit was found to have caused losses of 5.2 billion Vietnamese dong. After obtaining it, the company extracted about 582,000 cubic meters of sand, nearly four times the permitted volume. Nguyễn Xuân Tùng was sentenced to eight years in prison for violating resource extraction regulations and violating accounting regulations with serious consequences.

Lê Đức Giang received 180 million Vietnamese dong from Nguyễn Xuân Tùng. During questioning on November 12, he said the money was a Tết gift between acquaintances and was unrelated to the company’s permit application. The court rejected that explanation. In sentencing, it considered his admission of guilt and his payment of 1.8 billion Vietnamese dong before the trial to compensate for the losses.

Source: VietVance