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Podcast
Painter Thanh with Colonel Nguyen Phi Hung, Deputy General Director
of the General Department of Crime Prevention Police.
The painter-reconnaissance
Vo Tan Thanh is known for his talent in drawing sketches on mirror and identifying martyrs through the description of their relatives. This has created the conditions for him to stick with the job of portraying criminals for the police.
In 1999, in Dong Nai province and the neighboring provinces such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, many robberies were reported. The robbers were reckless and vulnerable. They used sophisticated tactics to remove traces of the crime scene. They often took advantage of the night to break into homes, shops and even government agencies to hijack. If they were detected, they used a weapon to threaten and attack the victims. They blatantly blocked cars to rob the drivers. The police forces launched a campaign to hunt these robbers but it was difficult because most of them could not be identified.
The head of investigating police agency of Dong Nai province at that time, Colonel Nguyen Phi Hung, (Deputy Director of the General Department of Crime Prevention Police at present) took the initiative to apply the basic portraying measure and artist Vo Tan Thanh was nominated.
Based on the description of the victims, Thanh sketched the portrait of a criminal that the victims said to be 80% similar. From the sketch, the investigators determined the number one suspect as Pho Van Chinh, (born 1963, living in Ba Ria-Vung Tau) who had a criminal record for theft.
Another case that Thanh still remembered is the one in 2009. The Lan Anh gold shop in Ha Tien town, Kien Giang province was robbed. The robbers used guns and they were ready to shoot if they encountered resistance. They robbed 100 taels. The gold shop had cameras but the images recorded were very dimly and they could not help to identify the robbers.
Vo Tan Thanh was invited to participate in the project. He and his son (currently studying at the Police University) followed scouts to all streets and alleys of Ha Tien to search for clues and meet with the witnesses. When they were trying to find the clues, about two months later, in Tinh Bien District (An Giang province) another gold shop was robbed. The six robbers with masks and guns took away 300 taels of gold.
Robber Vo Van Chinh, portrayed by painter Thanh (left) and the real picture.
The police thought that the robbers might be foreigners. They coordinated with Cambodian colleagues to hunt and arrested this bandit.
The bandit was suspected as the one that robbed the Lan Anh gold shop but the robbers did not confess to commit that case. Not until the investigators showed them the portrait of one of the robbers, sketched by Vo Tan Thanh, did they admit their guilt.
"Reviving" portraits of the dead
Painter Vo Tan Thanh is also able to reconstruct the faces of the dead based on their skulls. He employed the specialized techniques of surface anatomy, psychology and criminal science to sketch the portrait of pharmacist Nguyen Van Muoi’s dead father in Ho Chi Minh City.
Muoi’s father passed away when his son was in the army. Muoi could not return home to mourn for his father. Muoi could not remember clearly every feature on his father’s face. He gave Thanh a picture of his father’s skull, which was took at the exhumation.
Upon receiving the picture of the skull, Thanh spent a month to make a sketch of the face of the dead. The painter then called the relatives to see and edit the portrait. Seeking the sketch, they cried and sobbed. They said the sketch is almost exactly the same as him.
Hundreds of anonymous martyrs have been sketched by Thanh, based on the descriptions of relatives. He was ready to go anywhere, sometimes in the woods, down to waterfall with relatives of martyrs to find their lost graves.
The painter can also draw opposite portraits inside bottles or on mirrors. He said that the difficulty of drawing portraits in plastic bottles is that the pen has to operate in a confined space. He had to make a special brush to be able to put in a narrow bottleneck. When drawing, he had to draw by imagination, observant, not by eyes.
In a plastic bottle, he can draw two different images on both sides without overlapping. Looking ahead is a girl but when it is turned out it is a boy.
"The policeman without uniform"
Tuan has participated in many of the major projects of the police force. He was granted the Ministry of Public Security’s medal for protecting national security and won the third prize at a sci-tech competition for the portrait depicting technique.
The painter has 4 children but only the son who is currently attending the University of Police will succeed his father.
He said: "I am a police without uniform. I used to join the police to hunt many criminals. For the peace of the people I see I shall have to protect national security. My son will be a real policeman. I will support and encourage him the best."
Compiled by S. Ha
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