Vietnamese police have broken up a six-member ring that sold 147 Vietnamese women to China as future wives for men there for up to $13,080 per woman.

>> Two held for attempting to sell pregnant Vietnamese women in China>> 2 Vietnamese indicted for selling 21 women to China>> Woman gets 20 years for selling women to China Police officers in the southern province of Tay Ninh on Wednesday said that they have charged six people, including two Chinese men and four Vietnamese, with “trafficking in women” pursuant to Article 119 of the Penal Code. The two Chinese nationals are Xia Rong Lei and Wu Hua Peng, both from the Chinese province of Shandong; and their Vietnamese accomplices include Du Quoc Thang, Nguyen Thi Tat, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hien, and Nguyen Thi Suong, police said. According to the case file, on October 22 police officers caught Xia and Wu carrying out procedures for three Vietnamese women to leave Vietnam in a suspicious manner at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City. After being questioned by investigators, Xia and Wu admitted they were in the process of selling these women to China as future wives for Chinese men. Based on the two human traffickers’ statements, police arrested their four accomplices and later saved 13 other women who were going to be sent abroad by the ring. Police seized 10 mobile phones, seven passports, 11 ID cards, seven credit cards, nine marriage files, and VND30 million ($1,410) in cash from the members of the ring. The ring began to operate in late 2013, when Xia and Wu arrived in Vietnam and colluded with Thang, Tat, Hien, and Suong to carry out human trafficking deals.  They asked their local partners to find Vietnamese women who wanted to marry Chinese men, and then match them with men from the northern neighbor who visited Vietnam to 'buy' a wife. Xia and Wu paid their Vietnamese accessories VND100 million ($4,700) per woman, and after deducting all expenses related to sending these women to China, the Vietnamese group made about VND30-40 million ($1,880). In order to supply women to the two Chinese human traffickers, Thang, Tat, Hien, and Suong hired others to find women in southwestern Vietnamese provinces and paid them VND10 million ($470) per woman. Xia and Wu told investigators that they sold Vietnamese women to Chinese men for 60,000 yuan ($9,810) to 80,000 yuan ($13,080) each. The ring also sought women who wanted to marry South Koreans, investigators said. Up until their arrest, the ring had sold a total of 147 Vietnamese women to China.

When the six traffickers were apprehended, they had been preparing to sell another 16 women, including the three rescued at Tan Son Nhat.