Trial of gang protecting transgender prostitutes

To practice their profession, transgender people must pay 100,000-200,000 VND/day to the protection group of Pham Xuan Loc and his accomplices.

On September 7, the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City opened a trial of Pham Xuan Loc (35 years old, from Hai Phong City) and 15 accomplices for the crime of "Extortion of property".

The defendants were escorted to court on the morning of September 7. Defendant Loc is second from left (next to the defendant in blue shirt).

"Finding food"on the body of a transgender person

According to the indictment, around August 2014, between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. the following morning, there were usually about 20-30 young men who had undergone sex reassignment surgery to become women gathering in the area in front of the gate of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (Ly Thuong Kiet Street, District 10) to sell sex.

To be able to "practice" in this area, transgender people are forced to pay from 100,000 VND to 200,000 VND/person/day to Le Van Dung, Dao Thi Cuc and other accomplices for protection, otherwise they will be threatened and chased away.

On average, Dung and his accomplices earned 45 million VND per month. Dung divided the extorted money among his underlings, each person receiving 500,000 VND per day.

In November 2014, Dung was arrested by District 11 police for resisting a law enforcement officer, so he could no longer collect protection money. By the date of Dung’s arrest, the group had extorted a total of 135 million VND, of which Dung profited 45 million VND.

After her husband was arrested, around December 2014, Cuc colluded with Pham Xuan Loc to continue extorting money from prostitutes in the area. However, Cuc collected money for 2 months before being chased and beaten by Loc and his accomplices.

In total, Cuc earned 120 million, spent 10 million on Loc, Cuc benefited 60 million.

Many gangs compete for "protection"

After gaining protection rights from Cuc, from April 2015, Loc and his accomplices organized extortion of money from prostitutes in the area of ​​Ly Thuong Kiet street, District 10.

Every day, the underlings collected 200,000 VND/person for their work from the victims. Each day, they collected from 3 million to 3.6 million VND to give back to Loc, who then divided it among the other accomplices.

During the period from April to September 2015, Loc and his accomplices appropriated nearly 293 million VND.

In September 2015, Loc was again chased and beaten by Truong Cong Dinh for protection rights.

After gaining the right to "protect" transgender prostitutes, Dinh and his accomplices continued to extort money like Loc's group had done. From September 2015 to January 2016, Dinh and his accomplices extorted nearly 95 million VND from prostitutes.

At about 1:55 a.m. on January 4, 2016, the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department caught two individuals in the above protection racket red-handed collecting money from two transgender prostitutes. Expanding the investigation, the authorities arrested the above individuals./.

According to tuoitre