Embassy of Vietnam, Berlin

In 2017, the Vietnamese kidnapped Trịnh Xuân Thanh, a former Vietnamese politician and businessman, he was head of the state-owned Petrovietnam Construction JSC (a subsidiary of Petrovietnam), and the former Deputy-Chairman of Provincial People's Committee. In Vietnam, he was accused of causing massive losses at the state-owned company. While in Berlin, as an asylum-seeker, he was kidnapped in broad daylight in Tiergarten. Vietnamese intelligence service agents from TC2 drove the kidnapped man to the Vietnamese embassy. He was repatriated to Vietnam on 23 July 2017, which led Germany to expel a Vietnamese diplomat. He later said on Vietnam television that he had decided to turn himself in to Vietnamese authorities. However, there have been suggestions that this statement was possibly made under duress. Thanh was sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 January 2018.

A man from Vietnam, who was involved in the kidnapping was arrested by the federal prosecutor and sent to prison after a German trial.^[2]

• Germany–Vietnam relations