The journey of two international gold shop thieves caught

The Criminal Police Department of Nghe An Province Police has just successfully broken up Project 418V, eliminating a gang that committed transnational gold shop thefts in recent times. The leader of this gang is Nguyen Trung Thanh (born in 1978, residing in Hung Linh Commune, Hung Nguyen District). This subject has 4 previous convictions for Robbery, Fraudulent Appropriation of Property and Theft of Property.

Subject Nguyen Van Lam. Photo: Anh Quan

According to investigation documents, after being released from prison, Nguyen Trung Thanh went to Malaysia to work, where he met Nguyen Van Lam (born in 1990, residing in Quynh Lam commune, Quynh Luu district), who was also a drug and gambling addict.

After returning to Vietnam, unable to find a decent job, Nguyen Trung Thanh invited Lam to go steal property. Thanh's targets were not-so-big gold shops in the area. After agreeing on the plan, Thanh and Lam went many times to survey, monitor, and study the operating rules of some gold shops in Nghi Loc, Yen Thanh...

On June 4, 2017, two subjects drove a motorbike to the Quang Dieu gold shop (Nghi Loc). Lam parked his motorbike outside and waited. Thanh went in, pretending to be a customer, taking advantage of the shop owner's carelessness to steal a tray containing 9999 gold rings.

Evidence of the case. Photo: Anh Quan

The two subjects sold this amount of gold for 700 million VND. With the above method, the subjects committed 2 other gold thefts at the Nghi Loc district post office with a total asset value of nearly 2 billion VND.

After successfully carrying out 4 missions, realizing that the police were actively searching for them, they fled to Laos, causing many difficulties for the investigation.

By professional measures, after a long period of investigation, the Special Task Force overcame difficulties and identified the suspect. However, the suspect's escape caused the special task force to seem to be at a dead end.

On October 2, the Criminal Police Department received information from the Representative Office of the Ministry of Public Security in Laos providing information about two subjects who committed a theft at the Da La market gold shop, Luang Prabang city, Luang Prabang province, including Nguyen Trung Thanh, a suspect who is being targeted by the Investigation Team.

This valuable information seemed to decode all the information that the Investigation Committee was looking for. Immediately, a working group urgently went to Laos to coordinate with the Lao Police to investigate.

Subject Nguyen Trung Thanh. Photo: Anh Quan

After 5 days of persistent investigation, two subjects Nguyen Trung Thanh and Nguyen Van Lam admitted to being the perpetrators of the thefts in Nghe An in the past time. On August 6, 2017, after committing a gold theft at Phuong Nhan gold shop (Yen Thanh), stealing a tray containing necklaces and rings worth about 13 taels of gold equivalent to 750 million VND, they fled to Laos. On September 26, 2018, both broke into the Da La market gold shop, Luang Prabang city and were arrested by the police.

The successful breaking of Project 418V and the arrest of two suspects for property theft have contributed to stabilizing the security situation and public opinion. Nghe An Provincial Police organized an award ceremony for the Project Team for their outstanding achievements.

Mr. Quan