Extortion gang sends Aids threat
Police in Ho Chi Minh City continued their search yesterday for members of a gang that threatened to infect victims with the
Aids virus if they did not hand over 25 million dong (HK$13,320) for the Lunar New Year, media and witnesses said.
The official Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper published text from the gang's extortion letter, received by a Tan Binh
district resident, saying the gang members were drug addicts infected with HIV.
"Please give us 25 million dong for the Tet Lunar New Year or else we will blow up your house, transmit HIV to your children,
and douse family members with acid," the letter read.
Tan Binh district police confirmed the letter's existence, but a more senior district officer later rejected the story as "false news".
The family's housekeeper, however, said they had received the letter on Tuesday, but had taken no action.
Last month, a man in the same neighbourhood received a similar letter, demanding five taels of gold worth HK$12,900, Thanh
Nien reported.
Vietnam officially acknowledges 27,290 HIV cases throughout the country, most of them drug users, but health experts in
Hanoi warn that the actual figure may be as high as 150,000.
The South China Morning Post - January 12, 2001.
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