Woman steals cash bag from Japanese man after hotel invitation

Ngo Thi Hang, 38, was sentenced to seven years in jail by the HCMC People’s Court on Monday for stealing. Combined with a previous prison sentence of three years and four months handed out by the Hanoi People’s Committee for the same charge, Hang is going to serve 10 years and four months in jail in total.

At the trial, Hang said she went to a restaurant on Hai Ba Trung Street on March 2, 2022 for dinner and met a 63-year-old Japanese man who frequents the place. Hang struck a conversation with him and he invited her to go out for a drink.

When they left the place, they stopped by a convenience store to buy beer, before bringing it to a nearby café to drink and talk. As the place was too noisy, Hang and the man decided to return to the convenience store to purchase alcohol and drink there.

By midnight, the Japanese man invited Hang to come to his apartment inside a nearby 5-star hotel to continue drinking.

Early the next morning, as the man was sleeping on the sofa, Hang entered his room, took a bag containing ¥1 million and left. She exchanged the money into dong. The Japanese man later realized the bag was stolen, and so reported the matter to the police.

Hang said that while they were drinking, the man said he would give her the bag of money if she slept in his apartment, but he later kept the bag in his room. As Hang saw that the man was sleeping, she decided to steal the money.

After the incident, Hang traveled to Hanoi to perform another theft on another Japanese man. She turned herself to the police on February 26, 2022.

Hang has requested for leniency so she could return home to raise her child.