A ‘professional’ dog theft gang with six members has been nabbed in the southern province of Tay Ninh, after nearly a month spreading fear and anger to local pet owners.

The gang was caught red handed when they were transporting the dogs for sale at 5:30 am on Friday, police in the province’s Go Dau District said later the same day.

Tay Ninh is located 100km northwest of Ho Chi Minh City.

Gang members include five Tay Ninh residents, Do Minh Quang, Pham Hoang Lam, Nguyen Trung Luan, and Nguyen Anh Tuan and his wifẻ Nguyen Thi Bach Ngoc, and one, Do Trung Hieu, from the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang.

At the time of arrest, police also seized 47 dogs, including 32 dead ones, and several tools of the dog thieves, including taser guns, portable energy storages, weighing scales, motorbikes and a device to strip the dog’s hairs.

The dog hair-stripping machine

The gang members confessed to police they had been stealing dogs from local residents for nearly a month and would distribute the meat slaughtered from the stolen animals to eateries across the province.

Three members, Quang, Hieu and Lam, would travel on motorbike around and would use the taser guns to catch the victim dogs.

They would then sell the stolen animals to the couple of Tuan and Ngoc for VND37,000 (US$1.65) a kg. The couple would slaughter the dogs and distribute to eateries at VND40,000 ($1.79) a kg.

In the meantime, the other member, Luan, would source dog meats from Tuan and Ngoc and distributed to local markets at higher prices, from VND48,000 to VND50,000 a ($2.14-$2.23) kg.

Go Dau police said they are investigating the case further.

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