Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Vo Duong “Ben” Tran (photo: Sun-Times Media)
Someone in the FBI missed something when the bureau decided to hire Vo Duong “Ben” Tran as an agent. The former Vietnamese refugee, whose immigrant story of making a new life in America as a federal law enforcement officer seemed so uplifting, has been exposed as a cold-blooded criminal responsible for or accused of a litany of crimes.
Today, Tran is serving a 30-year sentence for conspiring to rob a drug house in Orange County, California. He was fired from the FBI in 2003 for trying to bribe a government official in Vietnam, among other allegations. But his criminal work may have started before joining the bureau—and continued thereafter as a member of an Asian-American gang.
Federal officials suspect Tran was behind the execution-style double murder of a Chicago couple, Timme and Vickie Le, eight years ago.
An informant who helped convict Tran described him as a “psychopath” willing to wait years to kill those he perceived as having wronged him.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Ex-Chicago FBI Agent Led Double Life as Gangster (by Steve Warmbir, Chicago Sun-Times)
Ex-FBI Agent Accused of Planning Murder-For-Hire, Denied Bail (by Denisse Salazar, Jaimee Lynn Fletcher and Laura Ashbaugh, Orange County Register)
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