Jul 5, 2010, 6:50 GMT
Hanoi - Police in Hanoi arrested 19 members of an alleged international human-trafficking ring and rescued nine teenage girls, an official said Monday.
'This is the largest human-trafficking ring ever arrested in Hanoi,' said Senior Lieutenant-Colonel Nguyen Van Thanh, deputy head of Dong Da District's Police Department.
Officials said a 17-year-old girl on a train from Hanoi to the northern province of Lao Cai called out to other passengers on June 19, saying she was being abducted and sold to China.
Under questioning, the girl's fellow passenger admitted he was taking her to China to sell.
Police unravelled the suspected trafficker's gang over the following weeks, arresting 19 others aged between 17 and 41, and rescuing nine girls aged between 13 and 16.
Three of the girls were found confined in brothels, where they were beaten and starved if they refused to serve customers.
One of the chief suspects, Ngo Manh Tien, 17, was said to live in Yunnan, China, and was arrested on June 23 on his return to Vietnam. The others living in Vietnam were arrested between June 24-29.
The suspects admitted to having sold 12 women and children this year for between 2 and 12 million dong each (107 and 650 dollars), police said.
If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison for trafficking people under 16 years old, considered minors by Vietnamese law.
Thanh said members of the gang would befriend victims online, then invite them to go shopping in provinces near the Chinese border such as Lang Son and Lao Cai.
There, they would be abducted and sold to China, or to brothels in the tourist town of Do Son in Hai Phong province.
The traffickers would sometimes pay off teenagers' debts to internet cafe owners to win their confidence, Thanh said.
'We don't know exactly how many people have been sent to China for prostitution by this ring,' he said. 'We need more time to investigate.'
Police said at least 6,684 Vietnamese women and children have been trafficked abroad by June since 2005.
Your Talkback on this Story