Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have dismantled what they describe as a large-scale operation that stole cats from streets across Vietnam's largest urban area and sold the animals for human consumption, according to state media reports released Monday.
Police arrested 12 men in connection with the alleged network, which investigators say was responsible for the theft and resale of roughly 2,700 cats. The suspects are being investigated on theft charges under Vietnamese law, which classifies dogs and cats as private property rather than as protected animals with independent legal standing.
Officers identified Luu Thanh Binh, 39, as the suspected ringleader of the operation. According to investigators, Binh purchased stolen cats from a network of suppliers and kept the animals at a holding facility in the northern part of the city before reselling them for meat. The suppliers, in turn, worked with recruiters who enlisted people to comb through residential neighborhoods on motorcycles during the dead of night.
Those hunters operated between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., searching for cats and capturing between four and 10 of them each night, according to the accounts provided to investigators. The timing of the operation appears designed to exploit the hours when pet owners and neighbors are least likely to notice the abductions.
Police executed a raid on the network on July 8, uncovering approximately 50 cats at the facility along with dozens of traps used to capture the animals, state media reported. The suspects later told investigators they had stolen and sold about 2,700 cats in total, though authorities have not disclosed how long the operation had been running before the raid.
After the bust, officers were able to return 13 of the confiscated cats to their owners. The remaining animals were placed in the care of a nonprofit animal rights group while authorities worked to identify who they belonged to.
The case has drawn attention to a practice that remains present in parts of Asia but has grown increasingly controversial in Vietnam. The consumption of dog and cat meat is not exclusive to the country, and it is not a widespread custom nationally. In Vietnam, cat meat has traditionally been more common in the northern regions and among older generations.
Several forces have contributed to a decline in the practice in recent years, including rising pet ownership and the ongoing urbanization of Vietnamese society. Younger Vietnamese are considerably more likely to view dogs and cats as companion animals rather than as sources of food, a shift that has slowly reshaped public attitudes.
That changing sentiment has been reflected in organized advocacy. In 2024, more than 250,000 people signed a petition urging an end to Vietnam's dog and cat meat trade. Three years earlier, the central Vietnamese city of Hoi An pledged to halt the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat within its jurisdiction, becoming one of the most prominent localities to take such a stance.
Supporters of the trade have sometimes invoked cultural tradition or folk beliefs, including the notion that eating cat meat brings good fortune. No scientific evidence supports such claims.
Under Vietnamese criminal law, the theft of dogs and cats can be prosecuted when the value of the stolen animals exceeds a threshold of 2 million dong, equivalent to roughly several dozen U.S. dollars. The provision reflects the legal treatment of pets as property, meaning the scale of a theft operation is measured primarily through monetary value rather than through animal welfare considerations.
For pet owners in Ho Chi Minh City, the alleged ring's reach — spanning multiple neighborhoods and operating for an unknown period — underscores the vulnerability of animals left outdoors or in unsecured areas at night. The return of only a small fraction of the confiscated cats highlights the difficulty of reuniting stolen pets with their families once they enter such supply chains.
The case also illustrates the tension between enforcement of property laws and the broader social debate over animal welfare in Vietnam. While the arrests address the theft component of the alleged operation, they do not directly resolve questions about the legality or cultural acceptability of the meat trade itself, which remains a subject of petition drives, municipal pledges, and gradual generational change.
Authorities have not announced additional charges beyond theft, and the investigation into the network's suppliers and recruiters is expected to continue as prosecutors assess the full scope of the operation.
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