VietNamNet Bridge - Seeing several foreigners walking onthe street, a young man stopped his motorcycle to drop the woman who sat behind him. The woman approached the foreign visitors to show them a card and a sheet of paper and asked them to donate money for charity.

The couple.

After a period of time following a group of people who impersonated members of the Vietnam Red Cross to cheat foreign visitors at the Lenin monument, the gate of the Vietnam Military History Museum and the Hoan Kiem Lake (Hanoi), reporters of an online newswire discovered their trick.

They often “worked” in pairs. Whenever seeing foreigners walking on a quiet street, the young man stopped his motorcycle to drop the woman sitting behind him. The woman approached to the visitors to show her card and an A4 sheet of paper and invited the foreign visitors to buy toothpicks or to donate money for charity. Many visitors refused, but many gave her cash and signed into a notebook.

After filming their acts, the reporters informed the local police of the scam.

At 10am on May 8, while soliciting several foreign visitors at the Lenin monument, a man and a woman were arrested. The woman immediately threw her Vietnam Red Cross membership card to a bush.

At the police station of Dien Bien Ward, Dang Van Dang and Nguyen Thi Thuy declared to be husband and wife, from Gia Loc district of Hai Duong province.

Their fake membership cards.

They confessed to join a group of people who used faked membership cards of the Vietnam Red Cross to cheat foreign visitors. They compiled a document, which was translated into six languages, to call for foreign visitors to buy toothpicks or donate for charity. Whenever seeing foreign tourists, they showed the document and solicited them for purchasing toothpicks or donating money for the Vietnam Red Cross.

Thuy said she did this for about seven months. Every day, she, her husband and their group drove motorbikes from Hai Duong to Hanoi on the morning to “work” and returned home in late afternoon. They earned about VND300,000-VND400,000 ($15-20) per day each.

However, when the police searched Thuy’s bag, they found a notebook noting the amount of money donated by foreign visitors, with their signatures. There are over ten pages in the notebook full of the names and the signatures of donators. Some people donated VND500,000 and even $100.

The police are further investigating the scam.

Le Ha