Police in Ho Chi Minh City have arrested a young man for staging a fake kidnap of his underage lover to extort US$24,000 from the girl’s mother. 25-year-old Mai Van Linh, of central Ninh Binh Province, was detained on Tuesday for “appropriating assets” and “having sex with minors,” only two days after the false kidnap was staged.  Earlier, the HCMC Criminal Police Department on September 30 received a woman, of Phu Nhuan District, who reported that her daughter had left the house a day before and did not return.

On the next morning, the woman said, she was phoned by a man who said he had kidnapped her 13-year-old daughter and forced her to pay him a ransom of VND500 million ($24,000) or he would kill the girl.

During September 30, the man phoned the woman many times urging her to pay the ransom.

After reviewing the girl’s social relations and tracking down the phone calls made by the blackmailer, police managed to locate where he was staying.

At 2 am October 1, a police team arrived in neighboring Binh Duong Province and raided a hotel room.

After forcing the door open, police officers caught the ‘kidnapped’ girl and Linh embracing each other in bed.

Linh confessed to police that he is married and has a child in Ninh Binh. He arrived in HCMC in early 2013 to make a living as a mason assistant.

In May 2013, Linh worked as at a construction site opposite the girl’s house in Phu Nhuan and he and the teen girl fell in love.

Linh later worked in another place but they kept contact. On September 22, Linh met the girl and the couple went to the Dai Nam tourist center in Binh Duong. They later had sex at a hotel room and Linh lured her to leave home and live with him in another place as husband and wife.

The girl agreed and left home on September 29 and then stayed in a hotel room with Linh. After the couple ran out of money, they hatched the kidnapping plan.