Vietnamese police have arrested the captain of a cruise ship and an attendant on suspicion of stealing from a foreign traveler on board a ship in Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in northern Vietnam.

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Police in Quang Ninh Province on Sunday said they had detained Nguyen Dang Trieu, 29, the captain of cruise ship Truong Giang-QN2316, and Bui Huy Thanh, 21, one of the ship’s attendants, on March 13 for investigation into their alleged property theft, Vietnamese media said.

According to the case file, at 8:00 am that day, a group of 18 tourists from China’s Hainan Province and a Vietnamese tour guide rented the ship at the Bai Chay quay to take a tour of the bay.

At 10:00 am, the ship reached Ga Choi Isle, where the group of tourists left the passenger hold to look at the scenery from the prow.

When the travelers returned to their places, one of them discovered their handbag was missing. The tour guide and the victim searched for the item and finally found it under a chair at the back of the passenger hold.

The victim then realized that US$20, 200 Chinese yuan ($32) and VND7 million ($327) in cash was gone from the bag.

The tour guide called the waterway police of Quang Ninh Province, and before officers arrived Trieu and Thanh returned a $10 banknote, a banknote of 100 Chinese yuan, and 10 banknotes of VND500,000 ($23.4) to the victim and asked that the passenger not report the case to police.

When a police team finally arrived at 11:00 am, Thanh gave the team VND2.4 million ($112.3) as a bribe and the team then reported the bribery attempt, according to An Ninh Thu Do (Capital Security) newspaper.

Police questioned Thanh and Trieu and they pleaded guilty to stealing property from the traveler.

Thanh told police that when the tourist group went to the prow, he entered the passenger hold and took a handbag placed on a table.

Trieu had told Thanh where the bag was in the hold, and after Thanh stole it and took the money from it, the former helped the latter place the bag under a chair at the back of the hold, police said.

The two also confessed that they had committed another theft on the same vessel on March 8.

In that case, which provincial police have been investigating, they stole 400 Chinese yuan ($64) from a member of another group of Chinese tourists when they took a tour of Ti Top Island, also in the bay.

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