Recently authorities in HCM City carried out a raid on a residence that was found to be printing and selling books illegally.

Illegally-printed books confiscated

Many of the books carried the First News-Tri Viet Publishing House logo,and written by the author Nguyen Van Hung, according to the HCM City Department of Information and Communications.

The bust took place on March 12 at a house in Binh Thanh District, and resulted in the seizure of a large quantity of illegally-printed books, along with forged invoices and identification cads. Many of the fake books were written for students by Nguyen Van Hung.

The violators also fabricated tax codes, invoices and other documents, including a license for the University of Education Publishing House.

The residence, rented under the name of one Dang Thanh Hoai, was allegedly used as a hub for the distribution of illegally reprinted books.

Since 2012, the ring is estimated to have printed more than 30,000 sets of books, taking in around VND10 billion (USD476,190). They also employed around 20 sales representatives who would visit schools to entice parents to visit and buy their merchandise. Most of the books carried the label of the University of Education Publishing House, and were difficult to discern from the originals.