Bag snatcher caught on camera, Saigon police launch hunt

By Huu Cong February 3, 2019 | 05:12 pm PT

HCMC police are hunting for two men who snatched a handbag from a Vietnamese Singaporean woman Sunday.

Le Lam Bao Tran, 40, was taking photos with her family at the corner of Cao Ba Quat and Thi Sach Street in the central District 1, a five-minute drive from Ben Thanh Market, when two men driving on a motorbike approached her and one of the two grabbed her handbag and escaped.

The bag had S$2,000 ($1,480), credit cards and other personal identification papers.

By chance, her relative clicked on the camera and captured the moment that the robbery took place.

One of the two thieves was captured on camera for snatching a handbag from a Vietnamese Singaporean woman in downtown Saigon on Sunday. Photo courtesy of the victims family

A man is captured on camera as he snatched a handbag from a Vietnamese Singaporean woman in downtown Saigon on Sunday. Photo courtesy of the victim's family

The family has filed a report with the local police and provided the photo identifying the snatcher. Police are now hunting for the thieves.

The snatching happened so suddenly that she could not react in time, said Tran, who’d returned HCMC to celebrate Tet, the Lunar New Year festival, with her family.

Street crime, especially those targeting tourists, has been a rising problem in Saigon for many years now, giving the nation’s largest city an unsavory reputation despite its many other attractions.