U.S.-Vietnamese law enforcement cooperation has led to a life sentence for an American defendant who traveled to Vietnam to sexually abuse children, the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City said in a statement on Tuesday.

Christopher Edwin Day, a 52-year-old U.S. citizen, was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on May 16 after pleading guilty to two counts of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and two counts of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor into illegal sexual activity.

The case began in the summer of 2016 when a local NGO in Hanoi reported the potential molestation of a minor boy to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Vietnam. 

Day traveled frequently between Florida and Vietnam over many years to meet and sexually abuse underage boys whom he had befriended and groomed online.  

He sought to buy his victims’ silence with money and gifts.  

HSI Vietnam worked with Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and the State Department’s Regional Security Office in Hanoi to identify and interview more than ten of Day’s victims and their parents.  

During the investigation, Day returned to Florida so HSI Vietnam requested assistance from HSI Tampa in the middle U.S. district, which subsequently investigated, interviewed, and arrested him for child sex tourism in August 2019.  

The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the United States Attorney’s Office in Tampa, Florida.

Day ultimately pled guilty to the above charges in February 2020.

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