OSAKA — Wednesday 17th December: A Vietnam Airlines co-pilot was arrested Wednesday for allegedly attempting to take to Vietnam items stolen by Vietnamese theft groups operating in Japan, police said. Dang Xuan Hop, a 33-year-old Vietnamese, has denied knowing that the goods were stolen, police said.
Police searched six related locations the same day, including the airline’s offices at Narita, Chubu and Kansai airports, while investigating how the stolen items have been distributed. Shop-lifting by the theft groups started around 2006 at drugstores and elsewhere nationwide. Police believe that some of the stolen items were sent to Hop’s accommodation in Japan and that he carried them on board the airplane as his hand luggage. The hand luggage of pilots and co-pilots does not have to undergo customs searches.
Hop was arrested for allegedly carrying 27 items, including cosmetics, in July from a hotel where he was staying in Osaka Prefecture to Kansai International Airport in the same prefecture, knowing that they were stolen.
(Source: Japan Today http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/vietnam-airlines-co-pilot-arrested-for-transporting-stolen-goods)
Police searched six related locations the same day, including the airline’s offices at Narita, Chubu and Kansai airports, while investigating how the stolen items have been distributed. Shop-lifting by the theft groups started around 2006 at drugstores and elsewhere nationwide. Police believe that some of the stolen items were sent to Hop’s accommodation in Japan and that he carried them on board the airplane as his hand luggage. The hand luggage of pilots and co-pilots does not have to undergo customs searches.
Hop was arrested for allegedly carrying 27 items, including cosmetics, in July from a hotel where he was staying in Osaka Prefecture to Kansai International Airport in the same prefecture, knowing that they were stolen.
(Source: Japan Today http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/vietnam-airlines-co-pilot-arrested-for-transporting-stolen-goods)