Police Catch Up With Long-Sought Suspects
According to reports from the criminal police division of the Da Nang Police Department on Aug. 2, law enforcement officials have formally named five men as accused in a robbery case and placed them in temporary detention nearly three years after the crime occurred against two foreign visitors.
The suspects identified by authorities are Truong Van Ngoc Toan, 33, Ho Tan Cau, 42, Nguyen Quoc Quang, 39, Huynh Tan Tai, 34, and Tran Van Duc, 37, all of whom worked as motorbike taxi drivers operating in the local tourism sector.
The incident unfolded at approximately 3 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2023, when Toan and Cau picked up two Danish tourists, Andreas Myrup, then 21, and William Trollund, then 20, offering them a ride back to their hotel in Tra Que for a set fare of VND40,000, which equals about $1.50.
Citing reports from investigators, three of their associates namely Quang, Tai and Duc tracked the motorcycle journey with the explicit intent to engineer confusion during the payment process and illicitly extract additional cash from the unsuspecting passengers.
Calculated Scheme and Intimidation Tactics
As the motorbikes arrived near the hotel destination, Myrup opened his wallet to pay the fare, at which point Toan intentionally shone a flashlight directly into the victim's eyes and into the open wallet to grab all VND540,000 inside without returning any change.
Further complications arose when Trollund handed Cau a VND50,000 note to ask for change, prompting Cau to feign a lack of cash and ask a friend to borrow money, which caused Myrup to open his wallet a second time and discover his cash missing.
Toan subsequently produced a VND500,000 note, but Myrup, believing he had actually lost around VND5 million or $190, refused the money and threw it angrily onto the ground as tensions escalated outside the lodging.
The situation quickly turned menacing when Tai and Duc approached the scene carrying a wooden stick roughly 60 cm long, pointing the weapon at the tourists and shouting 'go, go' in English until both terrified visitors fled inside their hotel.
Revived Investigation Leads to Breakthroughs
Following the confrontation, Duc picked up the discarded note from the ground, and the five suspects later regrouped at An Hoi bridge to split the proceeds, with Duc handing VND80,000 to each of the other four while keeping the remaining balance.
Based on reports from law enforcement, the investigation had initially stalled before being suspended and ultimately restarted this year after the Da Nang police chief personally ordered a comprehensive review of dormant criminal files.
Investigators successfully rebuilt the evidentiary trail and established the specific criminal actions committed by each suspect before executing the formal arrests, with ongoing inquiries continuing into the wider implications of the case.
Data released by government news portals indicates that Hoi An drew 4 million visitors in 2023, including 3 million foreign nationals, while Vietnam as a whole logged a record 21.2 million international arrivals last year.
