Two transsexuals offering massage services to a foreigner on Le Lai Street in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1.

Erotic massages offered by sexy women to foreigners late in the night can have a few unpleasant surprises in store.

He was taken to a house on Bui Dinh Tuy Street in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh District for the massage. After returning to his hotel, he found that he had been relieved of VND2.5 million (US$137) and 2,600 Thai Baht ($78.5) by the masseur.

City police later arrested a transsexual, known only as Sun, and found that she was a procurer and part of a gang that had stolen the property of many foreigners.

They have warned tourists to be aware of the transsexual gangs that are operating in the backpacker area.

The gangs’ modus operandi is to hire expensive scooters and scour around the “foreigner quarter” offering massage services at any hotel around, according to police in District 1’s Ben Thanh Ward.

Operating typically between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. every night, mostly around September 23 Park, the Ben Thanh Market and on the streets of Pham Ngu Lao, Bui Vien, Ly Tu Trong and Le Thanh Ton, they lure foreigners to empty streets or hotels to rob them.

Thanh Nien Weekly recently followed several members of these gangs as they drove around in their hired scooters around bars and eateries on Pham Ngu Lao Street, looking for foreign tourists. In somewhat broken English, they were offering massages for between $20 and $70.

During the negotiation process, the women often hugged the tourists, and one former member of a gang said these hugs were to check whether the tourists were carrying their wallets and cell phones.

Drunk foreigners were often taken to some empty streets and robbed, instead of at the hotel, police said.

‘Take a shower please!’

D., a transsexual who used to be a member of the gang, said they often offered, implicitly or explicitly, “extra” services along with the massage. After the service, they would urge the customers to clean themselves up in the bathroom and go through their belongings in the meantime. They would leave the hotel together and the victim would only know he had been robbed later because the massage fee was always paid before entering the hotel.

D. said sometimes they hired a room in advance and had one person hiding under the bed, who would take the victim’s clothes from the masseur and steal the money while the tourist was being massaged.

There are also occasions when the tourist is asked to take a shower before the massage, in which case they would take his belongings and flee.

Lenient measures

A District 1 police officer said they frequently had plainclothes police patrol the streets and catch these gang members as they tried to lure the tourists.

However, the police can only check their personal papers and issue fines because the robbery was yet to be carried out, he added.

Also, several victims obtained a police record only to collect insurance in their own countries later and police could not undertake further investigation because most tourists would leave the city a few days later.

Showing Thanh Nien Weekly pictures of dozens of transsexual thieves who had been fined for such violations, another district police officer said they knew well who the gang members were and the tricks they deployed.

“Many of them now take the foreigners to hotels in other districts because they know their crimes can be easily detected in District 1,” he said.

Reported by Pham Le