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Tran Thi Ngoc Trinh, 34, will be detained for three months for investigation into charges of "disturbance of public order," the city police announced.
Her trainer Tran Van Dong, 36, was also arrested for "fabricating an organization's seal or documents and use thereof."
Police announce the decision to detain model Ngoc Trinh and her trainer Tran Xuan Dong for three months, in a video provided by the police, Oct. 19, 2023.
Authorities also performed a raid at Trinh's house and seized several documents.
The detainment came after several police forces verified information about Trinh controlling large displacement motorbikes and performing haphazard acts on roads in Thu Duc City.
An investigation revealed that Trinh, despite not having a license for driving large displacement motorcycles, had cooperated with Dong to ride a BMW motorbike with a cylinder capacity of 999 cm3 on Oct. 6 on the D15 road of the Hi-Tech Area in Thu Duc City’s Tang Nhon Phu B Ward.
Police said she performed dangerous acts, like lying and kneeling on the motorbike, while not wearing any protective suits.
Earlier last month, Dong also helped Trinh drive a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle on Tran Bach Dang Street in the Thu Thiem urban area, performing similarly dangerous acts, like sitting on one side of the motorbike or letting both hands off the handle.
Trinh had the acts recorded every time and uploaded them on social media.
Investigation found she posted five such videos on her TikTok channel which has 6.8 million followers. The posts received more than 478,000 likes, 4,881 comments and 5,787 shares.
The videos on one of her Facebook pages, which has more than three million followers, attracted 5,900 interactions and 438 comments. Another Facebook page with 5.9 million followers received 2.7 million likes for a video of her getting a leg injury from one ride.
Her videos were spread widely online with more than 240 Facebook posts, more than 650 articles on different websites and more than 3,000 YouTube videos, receiving strong public criticism, police said.
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Model Ngoc Trinh at a police station in HCMC, Oct. 19, 2023. Photo courtesy of the police |
The investigators determined that such content adversely affected public order and safety, and negatively affected young people's lifestyle and thinking, violating the Code of Conduct for social media behaviors issued by the Ministry of Information and Communication in June 2021.
The police also found out that Dong was aware that the BMW's registration paper was fake, but still bought it for Trinh to use as enticed by its low price.
Trinh was fined by traffic police of Thu Duc City VND8.5 million ($346.02) on Oct. 9 for dangerous acts while driving a motorbike, as well as for the lack of an appropriate driving license. Trinh said she was about to take the exam for the license, and in early October, she and her trainer chose roads where few people went by for training. The images and videos uploaded online were not for promotional purposes, she said.
