Ho Chi Minh City police hold 12 men over the theft of about 2,700 cats

Ho Chi Minh City police said on Monday that 12 men had confessed to stealing about 2,700 cats and selling them to be slaughtered for food. Officers seized cat traps, fur-removing machines and scales. Thirteen of the rescued animals have been returned to their owners. The force released photographs of the cats it recovered. It did not publish a full charge sheet or a court date.

The method, as police and state media described it, was local and repeated. Small groups rode motorbikes through residential streets at night. They placed traps baited with fish outside houses where they knew cats were kept. The 8 July seizure is the documented haul: 50 cats, two weighing scales, 55 cat traps, 14 bags, 13 mobile phones, seven motorbikes, two fur-removing machines, and 6.7 million dong, about $257 or £195. The 12 suspects were then questioned. The 2,700 figure is what police say the men admitted for the wider run of thefts, not what was in the room on 8 July.

That gap between 50 animals in the seizure and 2,700 in the confession is the number a reader should keep. A confession can overstate a trade, and a single raid can understate it. The equipment points the same way as the confession. Two fur-removing machines are not the kit of a one-night theft. Fifty-five traps are not the kit of a household. Seven motorbikes match the police account of small groups moving at night. The phones, 13 of them for 12 men, are the part of the seizure that would show who the buyers were, if the force extracts them. Police have not named a slaughterhouse, a market, or a broker.

Humane World for Animals estimates that about five million dogs and one million cats are captured, stolen, trafficked and slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year. The Ho Chi Minh City case is a police file, not a national census. Set against that estimate, 2,700 cats is a fraction of the annual trade and a large figure for one admitted ring in one city. The 13 animals returned to owners are the only part of the file with a named outcome. The rest of the rescued cats were not given a destination in the police note. Returned, held, or destroyed are different endings, and only the first has a number.

Cat meat is sold openly in parts of Vietnam, and theft of pets has been a city complaint in Ho Chi Minh City for years. What changed on Monday is a police claim with a headcount, a date of seizure, and a list of tools. The men are accused of taking animals that belonged to households, not of buying from a farm. That is the legal distinction the case will turn on if it reaches court. A trade in cats raised for meat and a trade in cats taken from doorsteps are not the same file, even if the end buyer is the same. The fish-baited trap outside a house is the fact police are using to place this ring in the second category.

The July date also means the file is not a one-day operation announced for effect. Officers seized the tools on 8 July, questioned the 12, and took a confession of about 2,700 animals before the public note this week. Three months between seizure and announcement is long enough for phones to be read and short enough that the traps and machines can still be exhibited. The force has not said whether any buyer was arrested. A ring that steals 2,700 cats needs a place to sell them. The missing name in the Monday note is that place.

Owners in the city now have a number to set against a night-time loss. Thirteen cats went home. Fifty were in the July room. About 2,700 is the confession. The machines that strip fur are in police hands. Until a court tests the confession against the phones, the 2,700 figure is an admission, not a count of carcasses. It is still the first specific headcount Ho Chi Minh City police have put on this trade in public this week.