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Alleged brains of bank rob goes to trial
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Posted on Aug 15 2005
The jury trial of Vann Le, the alleged mastermind in the April 2002 robbery of the City Trust Bank on Saipan, begins today.
Le’s trial comes more than three years after the incident happened, considered the first and only bank robbery that has happened so far on Saipan.
Le faces three criminal charges: Hobbs Act robbery conspiracy, Hobbs Act robbery, and using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence.
Le, a Vietnamese-born American national and a former Saipan businessman, was first presented before the U.S. District Court sometime in October last year after years of hiding from lawmen. The Federal Bureau of Investigation traced Le’s whereabouts to Vietnam and extradited him to Saipan.
Le reportedly went into hiding in Vietnam in January 2003, using the name Bui Quang Khai and entering that country on a business visa. He invested in a telephone and telecommunication equipment company in the southern Ho Chi Minh City. On Saipan, he used to directly manage his own watersports company.
Le fell to the hands of Vietnamese authorities in December 2003. Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security turned Le over to the custody of the FBI at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport as part of an extradition process.
Local and federal authorities announced solving the bank robbery case in February 2003, charging three men—including Le—in federal court. At that time, the FBI already had in its custody the two other defendants, Norman Kapileo and Lionel Borja, while Le remained at large.
Kapileo and Borja went to the City Trust bank in Gualo Rai on April 12, 2002 and robbed the bank of some $8,649. Before the duo fled the scene, Kapileo fired his gun.
The court had already sentenced Kapileo to 15 years and 10 months imprisonment, after the defendant pleaded guilty to conspiring to rob the bank and another charge of using and carrying a gun during the robbery. Borja had also owned up to some of the charges in a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The court had also sentenced a certain Jason Ruluked to 33 months imprisonment for obstructing the probe on the bank robbery and making false statements to federal agents.
