Police in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 7 have arrested seven men of a ring that abducted a local man on June 30 for a ransom of US$22,250. The arrested include Vo Van Phuc, 42, Nguyen Van Ngoc, 33, Vo Minh Sen, 28, Le Van Tai, 29, Dieu Thien Cuong, 38, Nguyen Thanh Binh, 28, and Duong Cong Kieu, 32. They have been charged with “illegal detention of people,” police said. According to the case file, a woman in District 7’s Tan Thuan Tay Ward reported to local police on June 30 night that her husband had been kidnapped by a group of men the same day. An unknown man later called the woman, telling her that he was among the people who were capturing her husband. The man requested that she pay his group VND468 million ($22,250) or her husband will be killed. From June 30 to July 2, the kidnappers phoned the woman many times, urging her to pay the ransom. In such phone calls, the woman heard her husband crying and asking her to sell their house and motorbikes to have enough money for the ransom. The police later detected the abductors staying in an Innova car that was parking on the side of a hotel in Tan Thoi Nhat Ward, District 12. The police checked with the hotel’s management and knew that the abductors were keeping the man there. Police raided a room and freed the hostage. The victim told police that last year he, after suffering from business losses, owed a business partner VND48 million ($2,280) and failed to pay. The creditor then forced him to pay the debt and the interest on it, along with a compensation, which the creditor claimed to have totaled VND468 million. The victim told police the abductors beat him during the time they captured him. Police are investigating to determine whether the victim’s former business partner had hired the ring to kidnap the man or not.