Police in HCM City have reported a large number of robberies during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Illustrative photo. 

The latest case was reported on February 3 at the house of Le Thi Bich, 48, in Thanh Loc Ward, District 12. Bich and her family returned from a holiday at 4.30 pm to see their house was broken-into and some furniture and cash worth about VND600 million (USD26,548) stolen.

Earlier on February 1, the family of Pham Duy at Cityland Residential Area in Ward 5, Go Vap District also called to inform police about being robbed furniture worth around VND1 billion (USD44,247) at home while they were away on holiday.

Nguyen Tran living in Binh An Ward in District 2 reported on January 28 that they lost jewellery and USD notes worth VND1.7 billion (USD75,221) after their house was broken-into while they were visiting their hometown in Nha Trang City.

"When I found that I was unable to connect to our security camera at home, I called our housemaid to check," Tran told police. "Our housemaid, who had just gone out for about 30 minutes, rushed back to find our safe was unlocked and all jewellery and money gone."

Besides houses, shops and supermarkets had also been targeted by many robbers during Tet.

Police in Binh Chanh Province said they were investigating into a robbery at Dien May Xanh Electronics Store which lost properties worth nearly VND 1 billion.

According to a staff at the store, Nguyen Thanh Nhon, he came to work at the store at Tan Phuc Town, Binh Chanh District at around 8am on February 3 and found that it was broken-into.

He checked the store and found that 51 mobile phone sets which are worth nearly VND1 billion were lost.

A report from the city police showed that there were 51 criminal cases including 23 robberies occurring during the seven-day Tet holiday from January 26 to February 1.

"The number shows a decrease against last year period but the robbers were more organised this year with more targeted at homes of wealthy people," the police said.

Dtinews