Police in Ho Chi Minh City have arrested three people in a gang suspected of assaulting a businessman and extorting money from him.
Duong Sam Phach, Nguyen Van Tung and Le Thanh Hung, all in their 20s, were caught when taking VND200 million (US$9,400) from the victim on Thursday afternoon.
Police said they are looking for another accomplice believed to be the mastermind of the extortion.
According to police, the businessman, whose identity has been withheld, first received threatening phone calls and text messages from the extorters on February 16.
They accused him of frauds and demanded the money in exchange for their silence. They even threatened to kill his children and burn his house if he told the police.
He ignored them.
The next day when he was driving a motorbike on the street, two strange men who police later identified as Tinh and Phach approached and hit him with an iron bar.
The attack scared him and he informed the police, and the gang left him alone for several days.
But he received similar phone calls and messages ten days later as the extorters threatened to kill his entire family.
A petrol bomb was thrown into his house that night but the family managed to escape as some neighbors noticed the fire.
The house opposite his received another Molotov cocktail on Thursday afternoon, several minutes before the gang sent a few more extortion messages to him.
This time he agreed to meet them at a café, asking the police to follow him.
The trio said they met the other accomplice last January and were told that the businessman had a lot of money after selling some land lots.
Đăng ký: VietNam News