Chapter 36 — Shrimp Street Without Name

Minh Khang, after being fully updated on the situation by Hai Yen, began to learn more about the Coastal Development Investment Group, taking advantage of the journalistic investigative skills he had honed over many years in the profession. He found an old classmate who currently works at the Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City, where this group's headquarters is registered, to look up public information about the ownership structure.

After nearly a week of searching through many layers of subsidiaries, parent companies, and complexly set up intermediary legal entities, Minh Khang finally found an important clue: the largest shareholder of Duyen Hai Group, holding up to forty-five percent of the shares through an investment fund registered in Singapore, is a Vietnamese businessman residing abroad named Tran Quoc Vinh, who is distantly related to Mr. Dang Quoc Bao.

“This Mr. Vinh is not a stranger in the coastal real estate investment world,” Minh Khang explained via video call with Hai Yen and Kien, sharing the screen with the documents he had collected. "He was behind several controversial sea reclamation projects in the central provinces. He was exposed by the press about destroying mangrove forests but was never seriously punished because he always had a way to bypass legal loopholes."

“So the Cua Bien Project is actually part of a series of projects of the same interest group,” Hai Yen commented, quickly taking notes in her notebook. "And Mr. Bao, as a close person, is their extended arm locally, in charge of collecting land and permits through Ocean."

“That's right,” Minh Khang confirmed. "And according to what I learned, their operating model is quite consistent across previous projects: first, they create a crisis or take advantage of a local crisis to devalue land, then use satellite companies to collect land at cheap prices, and finally, when they have enough land fund, they officially announce a large project with land value that has skyrocketed many times over."

Kien, listening with an increasingly heavy expression, spoke up. “If that model is true, then the collapse of Kenh Ba cooperative ten years ago was not an accident or a single case, but could have been a carefully calculated first step for the entire future land collection plan.”

Hai Yen sat speechless at that statement, feeling cold down her spine at the thought of the possibility that her father, and hundreds of other shrimp farming households, might just be pawns sacrificed in a grand chess game staged long before any of them realized what was happening.

“We need more concrete evidence to prove the connection between the land collection after the Canal Ba incident and the current project plan,” she said, trying to keep her head clear amid the shock of this discovery. "If we just stop at inference, it will be difficult for us to convince the investigating agency to expand the scope of handling."

“I will continue to dig deeper into the history of land transactions in the area,” Kien said. "Now, with the criminal case being prosecuted, I think I can officially cooperate with the investigation team to legally access cadastral records, instead of having to ask around in circles like before."

“And I,” Minh Khang said, “will continue to quietly prepare documents for a long-term investigation, connecting All of Mr. Vinh's projects across many provinces and cities show that this is not an isolated case but a model that has been repeated many times. If this article is published at the right time, it could create enough public pressure to cause higher authorities to get involved."

The call ended after nearly two hours of tense exchange, leaving Hai Yen with a feeling of both being overwhelmed by the true scale of what she was facing and a new and strengthened determination.

That night, she couldn't sleep and spent hours reading old articles about Mr. Tran Quoc Vinh's previous projects that Minh Khang had sent her. An article from seven years ago, published in a local newspaper in the Central region, told about a small fishing village being forced to relocate to make way for a luxury resort, with details that made Hai Yen's blood run cold because of the overwhelming similarity: a mysterious water pollution incident caused the village's farming industry to collapse, a head of a local cooperative was blamed and entangled in a prison sentence, and just two years later, the entire land changed hands, belonging to a group of people. The group has a different name but shares a complex ownership network leading back to Singapore.

She read the article over and over again, her hands shaking with indignation. This is not an isolated incident, not a random mistake of Dai Duong company or Mr. Bao alone. This is a formula that has been repeated, refined, and applied in many different places on this coastal strip, each time leaving behind a broken community, one or more families forced into unjust imprisonment, while those behind them remain at peace, moving on to the next target.

She took a photo of the entire article and sent it to Kien and Minh Khang along with a short message: "This is not the first time they have done this. We need to find their other victims in these places, maybe they will be willing to speak up with us.” That idea, which just flashed into her mind in the middle of the night, brought with it a new hope: if she could connect with other families who had suffered the same fate, their voices, combined with her family's voice, would create a collective strength that a single individual could never achieve.

She understands that this fight is no longer limited to a shrimp company or a family case, but has become part of a much larger struggle, against a pattern of land and resource exploitation that has been repeated in many places across the country, under different names and faces, but with the same greed and ruthless nature.

The next morning, Minh Khang responded to her message, saying he had contacted a fellow journalist in the Central region who had written a series of articles about the fishing village being relocated that year, and this person agreed to connect Hai Yen with a few old families in the village if she wanted to learn more. This is promising news, but it also raises a new question for Hai Yen: whether she has enough time and resources to both continue the fight right in Nam Can and expand contact with victims in another distant land.

She sat and thought for a long time before decided and finally chose the priority: in the immediate future, she will focus all her efforts on consolidating the case in Nam Can, where the evidence is relatively complete and the official investigation process is making positive progress. Connecting with victims in the Central region, she decided, would be an additional direction, done in parallel at a moderate level, mainly through Minh Khang and his journalist colleagues, so as not to distract too much from the group's already limited resources.

“We need to take each step steadily,” she told Kien on the phone that morning, sharing her decision. "If we try to cover too many fronts at the same time, it's possible that no one front will achieve complete results. I want Nam Can to be the first place where we win a clear victory, to serve as a springboard for the next steps."

“I agree,” Kien replied. "A concrete, verifiable victory will be much more convincing than just making vague accusations spread all over the place. Let's just get it right here first."

The call ended, Hai Yen sat alone, opened the map of the Nam Can area in front of her, circled each important location that appeared in her journey: the market, the port, the Ocean factory, the warehouse where Ms. Ut Phuong was detained, the suburban villa where Mr. Son is still being protected. Looking at the whole, she realized that her entire story, even though it expanded to complex international connections, ultimately still revolved around a small, familiar piece of land, where she grew up and now returned to find what was lost.

She folded the map, put it in her briefcase, then stood up to make herself a cup of hot tea, trying to stay alert for what she still had to do in the coming days. Outside, it was late at night, but in her heart, the fire of determination still burned brightly, showing no signs of fading despite all the hardships she had gone through.