A man living in the southern province of Dong Nai has faked his own kidnapping and blackmailed his own family in order to pay off a mountain of debt he’d accumulated through gambling.

On Thursday last week, Le Nguyen Long Huy, 27, asked his friend Thach Phol, 33, to blindfold and tie him to a chair.

Holding a saw in his hand, Phol used Facetime, a live iPhone video app, to contact Huy’s family, and demand a ransom of VND1 billion (US$44,830).

After negotiation, both sides settled at VND800 million ($35,864), with Huy’s family promising to transfer an initial sum of VND100 million ($4,483) to a bank account provided by Phol.

Little did the family know that the bank account had actually been prepared by their own son, who devised the plan after losing an outrageous amount of money gambling. 

After receiving word that the money had been transferred, Huy drove to Ho Chi Minh City to visit an ATM to withdraw money, but the debit card malfunctioned after withdrawing only VND 20 million ($897).

Huy then asked his family to prepare VND700 million ($31,381) in cash and bring it to a location near Lotte Supermarket in Bien Hoa, the capital city of Dong Nai.

Recruiting  two friends, Nguyen Anh Vu, 22, and Tran Huu Duc, 23, to retrieve the money, Duc was immediately arrested by the police.

Huy, Vu, and Phol were also arrested soon after, and the four are currently being held in custody.

Assuming that Huy’s family forgives their prodigal son, the next family dinner will surely be an unbearably awkward one.

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