The Da Nang police have apprehended two young men for snatching a handbag from a Chinese tourist in the city on Tuesday, the fifth street robbery the pair had committed since last December, local media reported.

Police in Da Nang on Thursday said they have detained Nguyen Thanh Minh and Le Do Minh Nghia, both 17 years old and from neighboring Quang Nam Province.

The two youths will be charged with “property robbery by snatching” pursuant to Article 136 of the Penal Code, police said.

Minh (left) and Nghia (Photo: http://www.thanhnien.com.vn)

The victim is Zhang Lu Yin, a 30-year-old woman of Chinese nationality, who stayed at the Agribank Hoi An Beach Resort in Quang Nam Province.

According to the case file, at 2:00 pm on March 3, Minh and Nghia were traveling on a motorbike on Vo Nguyen Giap Street in Da Nang’s Son Tra District when they saw Zhang and another Chinese national, Zeng Gao Lin, a 45-year-old man, walking along the street.  Zhang was holding a handbag in her hand at that time.

Minh then steered his bike close to the foreign woman and Nghia snatched the bag from her.

Minh then sped away and stopped at the Hue-Da Nang T-junction, where they shared the items contained in the bag, including three mobile phones, one wristwatch, VND10 million (US$468) and 8,000 Chinese yuan ($1,277) in cash, 18 bank cards, and some other valuables.

After receiving a report about the street robbery, local police launched an investigation to track down the thieves.

In the evening of the same day, police identified Nghia and Minh as suspects and detained them for questioning.

The two youths then pleaded guilty to snatching the bag from Zhang at the police station.

Police officers recovered all the stolen items and returned them to the woman.

The young men confessed to police that they had committed four other street robberies in the city since December 2014.

In mid-January 2015, Da Nang police also arrested a local man, Truong Van Minh, who had snatched handbags from many foreign tourists in the city since the beginning of the year.

Minh’s arrest was the result of an investigation opened by police after receiving many reports from foreign tourists saying they had fallen victim to street snatching in Hai Chau and Thanh Khe Districts.

One of Minh’s victims was Mimi Pham, a Vietnamese-American woman, who lost a handbag containing an iPhone 6 Plus, two ATM cards, and more than VND1 million ($47) in cash.

Another victim was Nagisa Tamura, of Japanese nationality, from whom Minh snatched a handbag containing a passport, a Visa card, VND100,000 ($4.7), and JPY10,000 ($85).