Nghe An: Police arrest motorbike super thief gang after months of surveillance

The police identified Nguyen Van Dai (born in 1998) and Bui Quang Vinh (born in 1999), both residing in Hoa Quan commune, Nghe An province, as the ringleaders of the gang. It is worth noting that both Dai and Vinh have criminal records for fraud and drug addiction.

To have money to buy drugs for personal use and spending, Nguyen Van Dai and Bui Quang Vinh lured and gathered many bad guys, including relatives and people from the same hometown as Dai and Vinh, Tran Dinh Canh (born 2000), residing in Dai Dong commune, Nghe An province and Nguyen Nhu Duc (born 2001), residing in Hoa Quan commune, Nghe An province to commit the act of stealing motorbikes.

Every day, the subjects split into pairs, riding motorbikes with fake license plates to apartment buildings, boarding houses, restaurants, etc., taking advantage of the vehicle owners' negligence to steal property. During the process of committing the crime, the subjects assigned people to keep watch, the time to break the lock and steal the vehicle only took from 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Also related to the above gang, the police agency determined that after being stolen, the motorbikes would be sold to subjects residing in Nghe An province, including Nguyen Van Kien (born in 1997), residing in Dien Chau commune; Nguyen Khoi Nguyen (born in 2009), residing in Tan Ky commune; Pham Huy Hoang (born in 2006), residing in Vinh Loc ward and Tran Bao Long (born in 2004) residing in Dai Dong commune, for consumption. Notably, in order to deceive the authorities, after purchasing the motorbikes from the above subjects, Kien, Long, Nguyen, and Hoang colluded with a number of people in the area and acquaintances across the border to bring the motorbikes abroad for consumption.

Identifying this as a professional gang of thieves and consumers of stolen property with the participation of many subjects, committing many thefts, causing outrage among the masses, the Criminal Police Department established a special project, concentrating forces and means to fight.

After a period of monitoring and applying professional measures, from August 21 to 28, 2025, the Criminal Police Department and Vinh Hung Ward Police co-chaired and coordinated with the Command Information Center, professional departments of the Provincial Police, and the Police of the communes: Trung Loc, Phuc Loc, Kim Lien, Hoa Quan to successfully fight the case, arresting 8 subjects for the acts of property theft and consumption of property obtained by others through crime.

The seized exhibits included: 16 motorbikes, 10 mobile phones; 5 fake license plates, 10 ATM accounts and a number of other related evidence used to commit motorbike theft.

At the Investigation Agency, the subjects initially confessed that from June 2025 until the time of arrest, they had committed 21 motorbike thefts in many communes in Nghe An province, with a total property value of more than 350 million VND (many cases were not reported by the victims). The police agency also verified and clarified 20 victims, and recovered and returned 16 motorbikes to the victims.

Currently, the Criminal Police Department has decided to temporarily detain 8 subjects for theft of property and consumption of property obtained by others through crime to further investigate the case.