Though there are no sufficient statistics yet, many investigators have confirmed that most criminal cases Ho Chi Minh City are related to drug abusers.

Recent criminal investigations have shown that the use of drugs before committing robberies, thefts, and snatches is on the rise, Captain Tran Thanh Binh, deputy head of the criminal task force team of the HCMC Police, told Tuoi Tre. Many criminals were still under the influence of drugs when they were arrested after committing crimes, Binh said. One gang of drug addicts was lead by a young woman, 20-year-old Nguyen Phuong Ngoc of District 8, who was arrested along with her accomplices on November 29 after committing three consecutive street robberies in Districts 5 and 11. The gang’s trick was to deliberately stage accidents with their potential victims and then steal expensive mobile phones, laptops, handbags or other goods. Ngoc and other members of the gang are drug addicts and they had used most of the stolen money and personal items to buy drugs, investigators said. In mid-October, city police arrested a 13-member gang who had been responsible for about 50 street robberies, Captain Binh said. The gang was led by 26-year-old Le Doan Hau, aka Cop, who was a drug addict, like the other gangsters. Hau told police that his gang had spent all of the money they stole on drugs, gambling and prostitutes.

Nguyen Van Truong, a drug addict who has been seized by police in a recent robbery in HCMC (Photo: Tuoi Tre) 

Nguyen Dinh Chien, a 35-year-old man from Hai Phong, was arrested on July 26 after he took an 8-year-old girl hostage and threatened to kill her with a knife if the girl’s mother, H, didn’t give him the SH scooter she was driving. H had been carrying Chien and her daughter on a motorbike on Ton Duc Thang Street, District 1, when Chien forced H to stop the vehicle and demanded that she give him the bike, but H refused. After his arrest, police discovered that Chien was a drug addict and suffered a mental disorder cause by drug abuse, said Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Nhat Thanh, head of the criminal team of the district police. District police recently seized Tran Thanh Hai, 33, of Nam Dinh, who led a gang that attacked a bar on Nguyen Thi Nghia Street with firearms. Hai, a drug addict, used his gun after a son of the bar’s owner tried to resist him, Thanh said. “It is very dangerous because after using drugs, most of the criminals have no feeling of fear, so they become daring and willing to commit any crime. Oftentimes they are not even able to tell their relatives or friends from others,” Thanh warned.