Le Van Vien (1904-1972), also known as Bay Vien, was a Vietnamese criminal warlord who led the notorious Binh Xuyen, an underworld organisation active in South Vietnam during the 1940s and 1950s. Le Van Vien was born in Cholon, the son of a Chinese gangster and a Vietnamese mother. As a teenager, he was sent to prison several times, the first for the theft of a bicycle. During the 1930s Vien became a prominent figure in the Binh Xuyen, a network of criminal gangs based in Saigon. Binh Xuyen groups were active in standover and protection rackets, robberies, prostitution rings and the opium trade. Vien was arrested by the French in 1940 and sent to the notorious Con Son Island prison. He escaped in early 1945 and worked briefly for the Japanese. After the Japanese surrender, the Binh Xuyen formed a working alliance with the Viet Minh. In 1945-46 Le Van Vien participated in violent resistance against the returning French.
When Binh Xuyen leader Ba Durong was killed in 1946, Le Van Vien moved to seize control of the organisation. He again shifted his allegiances, abandoning the Viet Minh and initiating talks with French military agents. By early 1948 Vien had struck a deal with the French: the 20,000-strong Binh Xuyen would secure southern Vietnam from the Viet Minh, in return for continuing its criminal activities unmolested. Between 1950 and 1954 Vien controlled much of Saigon, his lieutenants filling the ranks of the city’s police force. He also made sizeable payoffs to Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai, who gave formal recognition to the Binh Xuyen and commissioned Vien as a major-general in the Vietnamese National Army. By early 1954, the Binh Xuyen leader was being floated by the French as a potential prime minister of South Vietnam – despite his criminal background and virtual illiteracy. The Americans intervened, however, and engineered the appointment of Ngo Dinh Diem.
Diem’s appointment as prime minister marked the beginning of the end for the Binh Xuyen. Tensions between the US-backed Diem regime and the French-backed Binh Xuyen continued for several months. Diem’s rejuvenated army attacked Binh Xuyen positions in Saigon and Cholon in late April 1955. The Battle of Saigon, as it became known, lasted a week and killed hundreds of people, many of them poor civilians caught in the crossfire. Its hold on Saigon broken, the Binh Xuyen collapsed, its members fleeing or melting back into the city’s underworld. Le Van Vien fled South Vietnam, where he was later sentenced to death in absentia. He relocated to France, reportedly with large amounts of money, and lived there comfortably until his death in 1972.
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