Father of 3-year-old girl in Dong Nai: "The kidnapper is my best friend"

On the morning of October 3, Mr. Tuyen, the girl’s father, said that the family and police had come to a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City to take her home. The girl was not injured, but was quite panicked and kept crying.

The suspect, Nguyen Thanh Son, 34 years old, works in the post office and has been a close friend of Tuyen for more than 10 years. His daughter and Son's son attend the same kindergarten in Kien Phat residential area (Ward 6, Tan An City, Long An), so he sometimes asks his friend to pick up his children from school.

According to the investigation, at around 3pm yesterday, Son rented a 4-seater car to pick up his child and his best friend's child from school. He left his son with his biological parents in Long An, asked the driver to take him and the girl about 50km to Ho Chi Minh City, stopped near the Zoo, then went to a hotel owned by an acquaintance to drop off the girl.

Son rented a car and drove home by another means of transport. He texted Tuyen to inform him that he had kidnapped the girl because he was "in a dead end", threatened not to report to the police, and demanded a ransom of 2 billion VND.

"Son asked me, 'Do you remember the case of the nanny from Bac Giang who kidnapped and murdered a 2-year-old child?', sent me a photo of the rat poison, and threatened me. He said if the family did not transfer money, he would kill my child and then commit suicide," Tuyen said. His family was very scared at that time, and immediately transferred 100 million VND to Son so that he would not get angry and harm the child. The incident was later reported to the police.

Long An police officers and detectives split into many directions to extract security cameras and search for Son's traces. When they determined that he and the hostages were on their way to the southeastern provinces, they reported to the Criminal Police Department (C02, Ministry of Public Security), Ho Chi Minh City Police and Dong Nai to coordinate the arrest.

At this time, Son continued to send dozens of threatening messages to the victim's family. Every few minutes, he urged them to transfer money, and Tuyen and his wife had to collect and transfer many times - a total of 750 million VND. After hearing his friend say he could not afford 2 billion VND, Son agreed to reduce the ransom to 1 billion VND, ordering: "If I don't receive enough money by 9pm, I will kill him."

During the nearly 6 hours (from 3:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.) of kidnapping the girl, Son only made one phone call to the girl's family and texted the rest of the time because he was afraid the police would find out and follow him. However, the police discovered that he took a Phuong Trang bus.

Assessing that the child kidnapper was likely to move through Dong Nai province, Major General Nguyen Sy Quang - Director of Dong Nai Provincial Police, directed the police units and localities to deploy forces to ambush and control suspicious vehicles passing through the area. At this time, Tuyen's family was pressured to transfer an additional 250 million VND to Son to round out the one billion VND.

At 9:20 p.m., when the Phuong Trang passenger bus reached Highway 20 (passing through Tan Phu town, Tan Phu district), it was stopped by the Traffic Police, Criminal Police of Dong Nai Police in coordination with C02 to check, control Son, and confiscate the bottle of pesticide on him. The suspect said he was asking the hotel manager in Thu Duc City (HCMC) to look after the girl. Immediately afterwards, the police and Tuyen's family came to pick up the victim.

Son confessed to committing the crime alone, without any accomplices. Because he lost money gambling, owed many people money, and was pressured to pay, he kidnapped his best friend's child and demanded ransom. Because the two often took their children to and from school, the children's teacher knew them as siblings, so he let the other person pick up the child.

"Because I was desperate and desperate, I did that. I threatened her, but I really didn't want to hurt her," Son said, adding that he initially planned to take the girl to Da Lat, but found it inconvenient so he took her to a hotel. After receiving 750 million VND, Son planned to escape, so he sent the girl to the hotel owner, giving the excuse: "A relative had an accident in District 1, I need to go out and do the paperwork urgently, someone will come to pick her up soon."

Regarding the reason for carrying the pesticide bottle, Son initially said it was to "commit suicide if caught". Long An police are clarifying the suspect's actions.

On the afternoon of October 3, the People's Committee of Dong Nai province unexpectedly commended the Provincial Police, Tan Phu District Police, Criminal Police Department and Department 6 - Criminal Police Department (Ministry of Public Security) for their excellent achievements in coordinating with Long An and Ho Chi Minh City Police units to arrest a child kidnapping suspect.

Major General Nguyen Sy Quang said that when he received information about the kidnapping, he was very worried because the hostage was a 3-year-old girl. He appreciated the coordination of the units in rescuing the child and arresting the suspect while he was on the run. "Our biggest reward is the safety of the child," said General Quang, while warning people to be vigilant against crimes that break out due to socio-economic impacts like this case.