HCMC woman sentenced to 9 years in prison for kidnapping girls to film porn

Pham Huynh Nhat Vi, 21, was sentenced by the Family and Juvenile Court under the HCMC People’s Court for “Employment of a person under 16 for pornographic purposes” and “Abduction of a person under 16”.

According to the indictment, Vi abducted the girls and made the videos under the instruction of her boyfriend from the U.S., named Richard.

In October 2023, Vi and Richard spent a week together in a hotel in District 1. Richard then left Vietnam, but was still contacting Vi via Zalo.

Richard allegedly often sent porn videos with other Asian women to Vi, asking her to persuade girls aged 6-12 to film them in porn. Richard said he would give Vi money, marry her and bring her to the U.S. if she did so.

Vi agreed and was transferred US$500 from Richard. Both agreed that once Vi found the girls to film the videos with, Richard would rent her an apartment to live in and to film the videos.

On April 3 this year, Vi went to Nguyen Hue walking street in the downtown district and saw two girls sitting on the pavements. She talked to the girls, gave them VND10,000 (40 cents), and took them to eat ice cream and fried chicken, before taking photos of them and sending them to Richard.

Vi took the girls through several streets from District 1 to District 8. Along the way, she texted her lover to talk about the location to film the girls. Through a global room-renting service, Richard managed to secure an apartment inside the Saigon Pearl apartment complex in Binh Thanh District.

Later that night, Vi took the girls to the apartment and began filming them for pornographic purposes. From April 3 to April 7, Vi filmed 12 videos and sent them to Richard. She was then transferred $200 from him.

As soon as they were abducted, the girls’ mother was looking for them and reported them as missing to the police.

She is a street vendor who often takes her four children with her. Her eldest child, 10, takes care of the youngest, who is nine months old, while she and the other two go around selling snacks.

The two went missing after she briefly left them in the care of another vendor.

Following several days searching, the police managed to rescue the girls and arrest Vi on April 9.

HCMC police have filed requests to the Supreme People’s Procuracy to seek help from U.S. authorities for further investigations against Richard.