US Green Card, holder of the 16 s imprisoned card

China’s attempt to strangle the world supply of rare earth elements was about to hit a wall. The Vietnamese entrepreneur Luu Anh Tuan aligned the support for a technology that could break Beijing Starcyding on critical minerals behind everything, smartphones with missile guidance systems.

Tuan and his family had fled Vietnam for the United States to escape the grip of tightening of Beijing on Hanoi, where the Chinese Communist Party exerts a strong influence on domestic governance.

In July 2023, he signed a technology transfer agreement, seen by Fox News Digital, to bring the technology of separation of rare land which he used in his company based in Vietnam, Rare Vietnam Earth (Vtre) in Vtru Corporation, a company registered in Nevada. VTRE had also signed a series of Memorandas de comprehension (MOU) agreements with Western companies.

“He had a bad sense of insecurity to be in Vietnam. He was determined to transfer his technology to the United States as quickly as possible,” the rare earth industry told Fox News, anonymously granted speaking to be noted without fear of reprisals.

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Luu Anh Tuan, president of the mining company vtre in his Hanoi office with samples of rare earth oxides in Hanoi, Vietnam, September 7, 2023. (Reuters)

At the time, the world depended entirely on Chinese companies to separate their rare metals.

“China has really worked for more than 20 years now on the construction of this domination,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical mineral security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an interview.

And while companies like MP materials based in the United States and Australia-based Lynas are developing their own separation technologies, China still controls up to 90% of the separation and refining capacities of rare earths and more than half of mining.

In October 2023, Tuan, then a permanent American resident and holder of the green card, becoming a citizen, was back in his Hanoi office when the Vietnamese authorities made a descent into the building, entering all laptops and files. Seventeen employees were arrested, according to the American trading partner of Tuan, Richard Dunham, and all except one, Hanh Huong, the sister-in-law of Tuan and Coo de Vtre, have since been released.

The arrest occurred shortly after President Joe Biden went to Vietnam and signed cooperation agreements on rare earth minerals.

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In December, China prohibited the extraction and separation of rare land, in what industry considered another effort to maintain its monopoly on the market.

“When China has done these restrictions, it really made countries like the United States and Australia realize that they did not even have the technical know-how to do it themselves,” said Baskaran.

“The process itself is simply very intensive and very toxic,” said Josh Birenbaum, a mineral expert at the Defense of Defense of Democracies, adding that China has hung the market through state subsidies and lax environmental concerns.

While the United States has a large mine of rare land, MP Materials’ Mountain Pass, until this year, the company exported these rare lands to China for separation. Trade and export war checks that have followed prompted the United States to store its rare land until the separation capacity is at home.

Tuan was accused of having forged a value-added tax receipt while exchanging rare land with the Thai group Duong, which operates a mine in the province of North Vietnamese of Yen Bai.

Xenotime ore (Getty Images)

Vtre had joined the Australian mining companies Australian Strategic Materials and Blackstone Minerals Ltd. Tuan and Dunham also met with officials from the State of Nevada and the Ministry of Energy to discuss plans to provide separation technology to the United States via VTR. The two were “enthusiastic” about the proposal, which finally led to the signing of the transfer agreement, according to Dunham.

The arrest also came while Vietnam was auctioned the Dong Pao mine. Vtre, supported by Western Partners, was the only qualified tenderer, according to Dunham.

This year, Tuan pleaded guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. He spent 16 years in prison with a fine of $ 10 million, but his defenders say he was “forced”. Huong was sentenced to six years in prison.

“We believe that these accusations are manipulated, accusations which were founded by actors of the Vietnamese state who were realities with China,” said Dunham. “He was tortured to obtain a guilt plea.”

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Fox News Digital could not independently verify this assertion. The State Department documents credible arbitrary arrest reports, torture and inhuman treatment by the authorities, affecting both political prisoners and other people in detention. Medical negligence and forced confessions are frequently reported.

Tuan’s defenders say that the company he bought ore, Thai Duong, refused to provide invoices at the actual rate that Vtre paid for ore. He only provided invoices which claimed that he sold ore at a lower rate, reducing his taxable income.

According to Dunham, Thai Duong refused to issue invoices reflecting the actual selling price to Much, allegedly to avoid environmental taxes, natural resources and companies, the obligations that have dropped on the Thai Duong, and not Tuan.

Tuan was faced with a choice: to accept low -rate invoices and compose tax deviations with his own money or allow his state -funded mineral project, and in turn, his business, to collapse, by Dunham.

Although Tuan was sentenced to criminal charges, Dunham said that the violation of accounting regulations had no evidence of criminal intention.

“Even if he was guilty of an accounting problem, it is not something that is criminally responsible for what they are trying to do. No room in Vietnam has never had a problem with this type of conviction. It is completely unknown. In general, you would pay a fine and that’s it.”

“He is the only individual outside of China to have a fully integrated rare land company which is from mining to metallization; in other words, to dig from the soil to the manufacture of magnets.”

China dominates the world market for rare earths. (Reuters)

Tuan was also found guilty of smuggling of rare earth materials, but customs documents show an authorization of 63 shipments of heavy mixtures of rare earth oxide in the context of the tax code 2846, which corresponds to the compounds of rare land. The court missed exports under the tax code 2530 (gross ore), to wrongly claim that they were illegal, according to Dunham.

The investigation of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security concluded that the customs agents who had signed the 63 export declarations for VTRE checked the compliance of Tuan.

China’s repression since then has only accelerated. Mineral experts were ordered to give up their passports to prevent them from sharing any technology outside the country. Beijing has tightened the exports of rare earth exports, which has aroused major concerns within the American defense industry. While China has allowed them to flow again during commercial negotiations with the Trump administration, they remain prohibited for defense purposes.

According to Dunham, VTRE has developed technology to produce heavy rare land oxides from xenotime, monazite and ion absorption clay with a purity of 95% thanks to a solvent extraction system. Technology was able to treat various types of ore and recycle NDFEB magnets.

Assistance to the United States government has not been fruitful, according to Tuan’s defenders.

Tuan is essentially cut off from his family and lawyers. He saw family members about five times since his arrest almost two years ago.

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“We are deeply concerned about his physical and mental well-being,” said the source. “He is mentally resilient. He continues to believe that the truth will eventually reveal himself.”

Fox News Digital contacted the White House, the State Department, the Chinese Embassy and the Vietnamese Embassy to comment.