Between 23:00 and 4:00, the residential streets of Ho Chi Minh City became hunting grounds.
According to police, 12 men aged 16 to 39 divided the city into groups and rode motorcycles through the neighborhoods. They left fish as bait and set traps outside homes where a cat lived. Each group caught between 4 and 10 cats a night and handed them over to the ringleader, a 39-year-old man who rented a premises wherethe live animals were gathered.
The network was brought down after neighbors complained that their pets were disappearing. In a raid on July 8, 50 cats, 55 traps and two scales were seized. Thirteen animals were reunited with their owners, while the rest were cared for by the organization HavePaws as it searched for their families.
During interrogations, the detainees admitted to stealing and selling around 2.700 cats. The irony is that selling cat meat is legal in Vietnam; what is illegal is taking an animal from the doorway of a home, because the law considers it private property.
How many more may have disappeared without anyone reporting it?
