Vietnam indicts Afghan overstayer and two drivers over 56 border runs into Cambodia

Prosecutors in Ho Chi Minh City have indicted an Afghan man who stayed in Vietnam after his tourist visa ran out, accusing him of running a paid pipeline that pushed 56 of his compatriots across the Cambodian border. Mohammadi Mukhtar, 31, is charged alongside Du Duy Trung, 41, and Le Dinh Chinh, 41, with organizing others' illegal exit from Vietnam, according to an indictment from the Ho Chi Minh City People's Procuracy.

Mukhtar arrived through the Moc Bai International Border Gate in Tay Ninh on April 21, 2024, on a visa that expired July 10 that year. He never left. Instead, investigators say, he teamed up with Trung and Chinh to funnel Afghans into Cambodia through unofficial crossings. All three were arrested and detained for investigation by Ho Chi Minh City Police's security agency on June 13, 2025.

The operation ran as a layered fee machine. In December 2024, Mukhtar struck a deal with a man named Ramozi Ahmad Hussain, whose background is unknown, to bring Afghans into Vietnam on tourist visas and onward to Cambodia for VND7.5 million, or $289, apiece. For travelers without Vietnamese visas, he forwarded passports and portrait photos to an unidentified woman who handled the applications at $150 per person.

Trung took the border leg for VND4.5 million ($174) per head, then subcontracted. He hired a man identified only as Hung, identity unknown, to run people across for VND2.5 million ($96) each, and Chinh to drive them for VND900,000 ($35) per person. Mukhtar housed the Afghans in hotels and handed their locations to Trung, who sent Chinh to collect them by car and deliver them to the crossing point.

The group moved 20 Afghans into Cambodia on four occasions between February and March 2025. Investigators say another 36 were sent through unofficial routes between December 2024 and April 2025, but they could not establish who those people were. Bank statements show Mukhtar collected more than VND487 million, about $18,800, in fees.

Vietnamese authorities have not announced trial dates, and the roles of Hussain, the visa fixer and Hung remain unresolved in the case file.