Police in HCM City have arrested an American Vietnamese woman who participated in the kidnapping of two girls.
Truong Huong at the police station
At the police station, Vietnamese American Truong Huong, 50, admitted that she had participated in the kidnapping of Tran Hoang M.A, 7, and Tran Hoang B.N, 5. The girls having US nationality are children of Tran Hoang, a Vietnamese American who lives in HCM City.
The two little girls and the housekeeper
Hoang said that on the afternoon of March 7, his children did not return home from school, so he went to their school but could not find them. Two days later, Hoang’s mother received a message from a strange mobile phone number, saying that the family has to pay a USD50,000 to have the children released.
They also got a clip of the girls being held. Right after that, Hoang immediately called the police for help.
Police found the two girls along with Hoang’s housekeeper, Lam Thi Phuong Dung, 15, being kept at a guesthouse on Le Van Quoi, Binh Tan District.
It was Dung who picked up the two children at their school on the afternoon of March 7. Dung said that Huong told her to take the children to the guesthouse, but she did not know that the girls would be kidnapped.
The children appeared to have been sedated with drugs found in the room.
Huong said she wasn’t the instigator of the kidnapping and there were others at large.
Police are continuing to investigate the crime.
