Younger brother sold his 'lover' to... older sister

Having no job and needing money to spend, Le Dinh Luan (24 years old, residing in Thuy Trieu commune, Thuy Nguyen district, Hai Phong city) and his sister Le Thi Lien (also known as Hien, 34 years old, currently living in China) formed a human trafficking ring from Vietnam to China.

With the participation of Le Van Viet (21 years old, both living in Thuy Nguyen district), the two subjects successfully carried out many cases of love fraud and selling women abroad, most of whose victims were young, gullible girls.

Lien and Luan.

From the victim's return after many years of being tricked and sold in a foreign land, the Criminal Police Department of Lang Son Province Police has clarified the human traffickers. By August 26, the Investigation Police Department of Lang Son Province Police had completed the file and transferred the case to the People's Procuracy of Lang Son Province to propose prosecuting Luan and Viet for the above crime. The Investigation Police Department of Lang Son Province Police has simultaneously issued a wanted notice for Lien and is coordinating with domestic and foreign forces to actively organize the arrest.

After more than two years of being tricked and sold in a foreign land, the two victims Le Thi H. and Vu Thi H. (both 21 years old, residing in Hai Phong) finally had the opportunity to return home. Filled with resentment, the two girls went to the Criminal Police Department of Lang Son Province Police to report.

According to Le Thi H., one day in mid-2014, through the social network Facebook, she met a young man in Hai Phong, who introduced himself as Hoang Trong Phuong (living in Cau Binh, Thuy Nguyen district). After just a few flirtatious sentences and kind questions online, she developed feelings for this young man. Not long after, she accepted the confession of her virtual boyfriend.

During their time together, she introduced her close friend Vu Thi H. to Phuong. She had no idea that both of them had become “prey” of the person she loved online.

Around the beginning of November 2014, Phuong invited H. to go to Lang Son but she refused. After many times of persuasion, Phuong said that she would invite Vu Thi H. to go with her, so she agreed.

At around 3pm on November 11, 2014, the three took a taxi to Lang Son, accompanied by a young man named Viet whose address was unknown. After arriving at Dong Dang town (Lang Son), Phuong and Viet took the two to their sister's house in China. At the border to pick them up were two Chinese young men sent by Phuong's sister. The two poor victims were unaware of the human traffickers' intentions, so they happily agreed to stay... Immediately afterwards, they were forced to sell sex at Le Thi Lien's restaurant.

The victims were threatened that if they escaped, they would be beaten. After a while, they were handed over to a Chinese couple named Hong and Tong who managed the restaurant. Lien only returned to the restaurant occasionally to check on them.

About two months later, Le Thi H. was transferred to Lien's house in Bang Tuong. Every day, she was forced to sell sex to serve customers. As for Vu Thi H., at the end of 2015, she was also transferred to Bang Tuong to live with a woman named Dinh, Lien's husband's niece (about 1km from Lien's house) and was also forced to sell sex every day, under Lien's control.

Living in bitter humiliation and fear, fortunately in February 2016, Le Thi H. met a man from Bac Ninh, who worked as an auto mechanic in China, and asked him to help her escape back to Vietnam. Sympathizing with her plight, the man agreed.

Around the end of May 2016, while selling sex to customers, Le Thi H. escaped outside, took a taxi to a motel, and called Vu Thi H. and a woman named Xiem (from Hai Duong province, who was also tricked into going to China) to escape together. They escaped outside and called the man for help. This man and a man named Tan, from Lang Son, came to pick up and take all three of them back to Vietnam.

Le Thi H. said: "When I was tricked and sold, Lien took away a gold necklace, a silver bracelet and a cell phone from me."

Given the seriousness of the case, Lieutenant Colonel Vu Tien Duc, Deputy Head of the Criminal Police Department of Lang Son Provincial Police, directed the unit's experienced detectives and investigators to conduct the verification. Because the case happened many years ago, at the time of being tricked and sold abroad, the victims came to Lang Son for the first time, so the identification of the location where the incident occurred had to be done over and over again. Furthermore, the victims and the subjects knew each other on social networks and used fake names, making the investigation even more difficult.

After careful investigation, the detectives determined that Phuong's real name was Le Dinh Luan. At the time of the investigation by the Lang Son Provincial Police Department (July 11, 2017), Luan was serving a sentence at Xuyen Nguyen Prison (Hai Phong) with a sentence of 5 years and 6 months in prison for human trafficking.

The Investigation Police Agency of Lang Son Province has completed the procedures to extract the subject to the Provincial Police Detention Center. From here, the case was initially clarified: Luan's sister, Le Thi Lien, went to China to get married, then did business and lived there. After many trips to China, he learned that his sister managed prostitution activities. Lien told Luan to return to Vietnam to find someone to bring here to sell, depending on their beauty, they would pay from 50 to 60 million VND/person.

Being unemployed and addicted to gambling, he agreed to the large sum of money. To trick the young girls, Luan came up with a way to get to know them online and flirt with them, pretending to be in love. He used a fake name to avoid detection. To make the scam successful, he lured Viet, a jobless man, and promised to pay 70 million VND/person.

Speaking to us on August 26, Lieutenant Colonel Vu Tien Duc said: “In addition to the two victims above, these two subjects were also involved in the trafficking of a number of women in Thai Nguyen, Phu Tho, Nam Dinh... but the victims refused to report because some did not want to mention the past, and some cases had left to work elsewhere. This is also one of the difficulties in solving the case.

According to CAND