Man steals deceased uncle's bones to extort P11 million from relatives to pay his debts
A man from Vietnam was arrested after he stole his uncle’s remains to extort five billion Vietnamese dong (more than P11 million) from his relatives to pay off his gambling debt.
Detailing the incident, Luu Thanh Nam from Thanh Hoa province in northern Vietnam dug a 20cm hole in his uncle’s grave retrieved some bones, and hid them in a pile of rubbish nearby, South China Morning Post reported.
The remains reportedly belonged to Nam’s cousin Luu Thanh Hoi's father, who passed away four years ago.
The 37-year-old then sent a text message to Hoi’s wife using an anonymous phone number, threatening that if they would not pay him five billion Vietnamese dong and if they contacted the police regarding the matter, his father's remains would not be returned.
Following the threatening message, Hoi and his wife went to his father's grave, where they saw the hole in the coffin cap, which they immediately reported to the police.
Upon the police’s investigation, Nam was identified as the perpetrator. He later confessed to doing the crime, saying that he had “overwhelming gambling debts” prompting him to commit the crime.
He was arrested on Sept. 12 for grave desecration—where he could be sentenced to eight years of hard labor, or up to three years of imprisonment—and extortion.
The police recovered the stolen bones and returned them to Hoi’s family, who buried them again in hopes of “restoring peace to the spirit.”