By Mata Press Service
To many, Le Thi Phuong Mai was an enterprising businesswoman working within her community in Ottawa.
The 40-year-old Canadian of Vietnamese origin ran the Vi Vi Fashion House – a sewing and clothes manufacturing plant – in the city, helping other Vietnamese-Canadians get jobs and get by.
She drove around in fancy cars and was known as “the Queen” in Ottawa’s Vietnamese circles.
What many did not know was that Le was in fact the “chief financial officer” for a massive drug trafficking network and operated under the alias “Big Boobs.”
The gang was raking in millions of dollars through the production of ecstasy and marijuana in Canada, the distribution of the drugs throughout the United States, and the laundering of illicit funds back to Vietnam.
Two years ago, Le and her Toronto-based drug lord Ze Wai Wong were captured in a series of 140 coordinated arrests across Canada and 15 cities in the United States.
Now the Mounties, their counterparts in Vietnam and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency are on the hunt for the millions of dollars laundered by Le and her associates, The Asian Pacific Post has learned.
Vietnamese police are reportedly tracking down some US$25 million gained from the illicit sale of drugs Le had remitted to Vietnam.
The money was reportedly deposited into a commercial bank in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnamese police investigations showed that Le and her group worked with officials from the central province of Khanh Hoa to develop a 70-hectare beach resort in the picturesque community of Doc Let.
They had established a company in Ottawa under the name of Viet-Can Resorts & Plantation Inc.
Le and her mates had grandiose plans for their drug loot.
Their applications to excited local officials included plans for 100 five-star and 100 four-star villas and other tourism facilities.
Khanh Hoa is a coastal province of Central Vietnam, endowed with natural resources, and an advantageous location and climate. The province has a healthy tourism industry.
When Le and her crew came knocking with promises of 400 jobs for locals, the project did not take long to be approved by the Khanh Hoa People’s Committee in early February 2004.
Canadian cops who raided Le’s home in Ottawa later found documents and papers related to this project.
In addition, Vietnamese police said Le had also made enquiries about opening a 100 percent foreign-invested commercial bank in Viet Nam.
While the beach resort plan was abandoned after the police raids in March 2004, Le and her crew had already moved millions back to Vietnam, a large chunk of it via China.
Vietnam media said that Interpol Vietnam and investigators from the Public Security Ministry are assisting in the hunt for Le’s loot.
In addition, several members Khanh Hoa People’s Committee, which approved Le’s project, have also been arrested in connection with illegally granting land use rights.
It could not be determined if the corruption scandal is directly linked to the drug gang.
At the time of Le’s arrest in 2004, police said her clothing operation provided the group with a legitimacy as to why they had houses and fancy cars.
Le was described as the network's "chief financial operator," who was in charge of laundering millions of dollars in drug profits, much of which ended up in Vietnam.
She worked closely with Ze Wai Wong who arrived in Canada in 1987 as a 30-year-old refugee from Guangzhou, in southern China's Guangdong province.
Ze was the ultimate boss of the syndicate, police alleged.
In court papers after the arrest, Ze is described as the "CEO" of a 130-person drug trafficking organization responsible for an estimated 15 percent of all ecstasy sales in North America.
He had earlier been convicted of being a key player in a forgery ring responsible for one in every five of the world's fake credit cards.
The network was responsible for the production of ecstasy and marijuana in Canada -- after importing the powder from Holland, then distributing the drugs in the United States and laundering money.
The syndicate was busted in 2004 as a result of three police operations - Project Okapi in Toronto, Project Codi in Ottawa and Project Candybox in the United States.
The wide-ranging investigation that led to the arrests began in May, 2001 and resulted in the dismantling of labs capable of producing more than 250,000 pills -- with a street value of $25 each -- every day.
Officers also seized 377,000 pink, green and purple pills, 120 kilograms of ecstasy powder worth more than $33-million and other equipment, such as presses, scales, dyes and vacuum packers.
"This network operated with a similar structure to that of an operation run by a large corporation," said RCMP Chief Superintendent Ben Soave, head of the Canadian side of the investigation, when announcing the arrests.
"In effect, we have arrested the alleged chief operating officer and the chief financial officer. We have arrested the finance department, the rest of middle management and the sales force," Soave said. "It is no longer a viable operation."
The hunt for the gang’s loot comes in the wake of another high profile arrest of another Canadian-Vietnamese mafia boss.
The Asian Pacific Post reported last May that Vietnam police investigating a high profile corruption case involving government officers in Hanoi have arrested a Canadian who is reputedly the head of an international criminal syndicate.
The crime gang called "Long Haul" operates in Canada, Europe and Asia specializing in drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized betting on international soccer games, police said according to Vietnam-based news sources.
The Canadian was identified as 46-year-old Ngo Tien Dung alias Dung Kieu.
News reports said Dung is "the owner of five villas in Canada, one of which is worth US$7 million" and that he is believed to have laundered a whopping US$26 million in Vietnam through business contracts.
Major-General Pham Xuan Quac, head of Vietnam’s Department of Investigation of Social Order Crimes, said Dung collected an average pot of over US$1.5 million during every major international football game.
