The Hanoi People’s Court on April 18 sentenced five Colombian nationals to between seven and 13 years imprisonment on charges of “property theft” in accordance with Article 138 of the Penal Code. 

From left, Jose Aureliano Rosas Pena, Luis Alexander Rodriguez Cuevro, Jersain Ladino Cardona, Carlos Alberto Lamprea Pena, and Fabian Lucero Wilches. (Photo courtesy of the Hanoi Department of Police)

The ring leader Fabian Lucero Wilches, born in 1982, received a jail sentence of 13 years, while Jersain Ladino Cardona, 1966, and Jose Aureliano Rosas Pena, 1962, both were sentenced to 12 years in prison.

A 10-year sentence was imposed on Carlos Alberto Lamprea Pena, 1970, while Luis Alexander Rodriguez Cuevro, born in 1977, got seven years.

According to the indictment, the men met while travelling in Laos and Cambodia in 2017. They then regularly contacted each other via the messenger application Whatsapp and decided to come to Vietnam to steal from people who had just left banks or currency exchange shops.

After following the victims, the thieves punctured their vehicle’s tires with a knife, forcing them to go to repair shops to replace the tires.

They took advantage of the time the victims had their tires repaired to steal gold and cash worth more than 500 million VND (21,900 USD) from Nguyen Van Ngoc in Hoan Kiem district  on February 22, 2017 and 1.6 billion VND (70,400 USD) from Pham Binh Minh in Dong Da district on March 28, 2017.-VNA