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On Friday they proposed that prosecutors charge Pham Huynh Nhat Vi, 21, and the man, identified only as Richard, with "Employment of a person under 16 for pornographic purposes" and "Abduction of a person under 16."
According to the police, Vi got to know Richard through a mobile app and started a romantic relationship with him in October 2023.
They met in person a month later, and stayed together at a hotel in HCMC’s District 1 for more than a week.
Richard then left Vietnam and the couple kept in touch via Zalo.
He often sent her images of Asian women having sex.
He then asked Vi to find girls aged six to 12 to make porn videos and send to him, promising to pay her money, even marry and take her to the U.S.
She agreed and he transferred US$500 to her.
They planned to rent apartments to make videos when they managed to lay their hands on young girls.
On April 3 Vi spotted the two young girls alone on Dong Khoi Street in downtown HCMC.
She gave them VND10,000 and offered to take them to eat ice cream and fried chicken.
She took photos of them and sent to Richard, who told her to abduct them.
Vi took them to Saigon Pearl apartments in Binh Thanh District, where Richard had rented a place.
Between April 3 and 7 Vi made 12 "sexually arousing videos" with the girls and sent them to Richard.
But the police would quote the girls as saying later that no man had touched their private parts during the abduction.
As soon as they were abducted, the girls' mother was looking for them and reported them as missing to the police.
She is a street vendor who often takes her four children with her. Her eldest child, 10, takes care of the youngest, who is nine months old, while she and the other two go around selling snacks.
The two went missing after she briefly left them in the care of another vendor.
Around 200 police officers began a search for them and tracked them down to the apartment on April 9, six days after the kidnapping, and arrested Vi.
The police have asked the Supreme People’s Procuracy to seek assistance from the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Richard’s role and collect his statements.
