Fearing ‘being sold’ to Cambodia, Chinese teenagers murder Vietnamese taxi driver

Huang Jie Cheng, 18, Luo Shi Jun, 16, and Gan Ying, 17, have been detained and are facing charges of murder and robbery, police in the central Quang Ngai Province announced Tuesday.

The group told police that their lives in China were difficult, and they were introduced by a broker to come to Vietnam for high-paying jobs.

However, upon arrival on Saturday, they could not contact the broker, whom they do not know, and were not picked up as agreed so they booked a taxi on their own, heading south.

Once in the taxi, they received a message with the location from the broker on their phone.

Seeing the destination was in Cambodia, they said they feared being sold, so they killed the driver, dumped his body on the side of the road on Saturday night, and stole the car with the purpose of driving back to China.

The three were arrested after the body of Nguyen Van Hai, the 47-year-old taxi driver of Mai Linh company, was found on the side of National Highway 1 in Mo Duc District of Quang Ngai.

Locals discovered the body early on Sunday and reported it to police.

On Sunday evening, traffic police of Quang Binh Province, also in the central region, were patrolling along a National Highway 1A section when they saw a five-seat Mai Linh taxi cab that looked suspicious. They requested the vehicle to stop, but its driver did not heed the request and sped away.

Police later arrested the three Chinese teenagers in the car, which stopped after several collisions.