HANOI, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Nine people have been prosecuted while eleven others are being hunted for engaging in a mass forest destruction case in Vietnam's central Quang Nam province, some 650 km south of the capital Hanoi.
Huynh Song Thu, deputy director of the provincial police department, revealed the information at a press conference held in Quang Nam on Thursday afternoon.
Among the prosecuted, five were arrested and four came to confess at police stations. Other eleven suspects remained at large, local Thanh Nien (Young People) online newspaper quoted Thu as saying.
According to Thu, this is an "extremely serious incident." So far, police have seized a total of 611 lumbers from some 60 Fokienia hodginsii trees with total volume of 115 cubic meters of wood.
Police in the Laos-bordering province estimated that the 60 trees were worth more than 18 to 24 billion Vietnamese dong (over 800,000 to 1.096 million U.S. dollars).
