A court in HCMC sentenced a Colombian man to 12 years in jail on Wednesday for stealing $47,000 from five-star Caravelle Hotel in District 1.
Martinez Lopez Samir, 36, charged with “theft,” will be deported from Vietnam after completing his sentence, the court ruled.
According to VNExpress, the fellow countryman Diaz Velasquez Carlos Jeronimo, who was involved in the theft, is currently at large.
In January 2019, Martinez and Diaz entered Vietnam on tourist visas. Two days later, they visited an e-gaming club at Caravelle.
Discovering the gaming machine’s cash box was unlocked, they decided on the heist.
Martinez subsequently asked a nearby waiter for a cup of coffee, leaving the cash box unguarded. Taking advantage of the situation, the duo retrieved over $47,000 from inside and escaped the hotel.
They escaped into Cambodia after that via Moc Bai border gate in Tay Ninh Province, which borders HCMC.
Last February, the wanted Martinez was arrested by HCMC police.
On August 27th, court in Vietnam sentenced three foreign men to seven years in jail each for using fake cards to steal money from ATMs.
The trio entered Vietnam in July last year, stayed in Vinh, the capital of Nghe An, and installed equipment at local ATMs to steal customers’ data for making fake cards.
Acting on complaints from affected banks, the Ministry of Public Security arrested the trio in September as they were leaving town.
Officers found them in possession of 316 fake bank cards and three sets of electronic equipment with mini cameras and data collection software.
Investigators said they had stolen over VND279 million ($12,060) from a number of accounts between August and September 2019. VNExpress reported.
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Source: Vietnam Insider