Daily London
Warning: This story contains graphic content.
An alleged “kill crew” charged with the kidnap and murder of an organised crime network member’s wife in Sydney sent a picture of the woman to her husband before killing her, police claim.
Thi Kim Tran, 45, was at her home in Bankstown about 10.30pm on April 17 when a group of men allegedly forced their way in and kidnapped her at gunpoint.
They allegedly assaulted an eight-year-old boy with a baseball bat, putting him in a coma, before forcing the woman to strip naked on the street and forcing her into an SUV.
A 15-year-old boy at the home was also taken to hospital for assessment.
About an hour later, a car was found burning on Welfare Avenue in nearby Beverly Hills.
Fire crews extinguished the blaze, but the car was destroyed and police found Tran dead inside.
She had been bound and gagged, but had died before the car was set alight, Detective Superintendent Joe Doueihi told media today.
Police allege the woman was likely targeted due to her husband’s involvement with a Victoria-based organised criminal network.
Strike Force Bushfield detectives yesterday arrested three men, aged 31, 20 and 21, allegedly part of a “kill crew” tasked with finding and killing Tran’s husband.
They were charged with murder, conspiring to murder, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, kidnapping in company and participating in a criminal group.
Doueihi said the matter would be heard in court today.
Families no longer ‘off limits’
Doueihi said the husband was in hiding after his superiors in the crime syndicate suspected he had stolen up to 80kg of drugs from their operation.
Attempts to lure him out failed, Doueihi said, and so they had visited his home after attempting to contact him.
However, Doueihi said police will allege Tran would have been targeted regardless.
“It obviously appears those days are gone,” he said when asked by media about whether old underworld prohibitions against targeting uninvolved family remembers had been discarded.
“These young criminals are ruthless, they don’t care about the ‘code’, if I can use that word.
“It’s no longer ‘families are off limits’, it’s whatever’s in their best interest.”
He claimed the alleged killers also sent Tran’s husband a photo of her before her death.
Tran was unaware of any supposed criminal activity her husband had been involved in, Doueihi said, and police were now in contact with the husband, who was cooperating with the investigation.
Doueihi said the kill order had come from much higher up in the crime syndicate, but it was uncertain whether it originated in Victoria or overseas.
He characterised the three men arrested yesterday as “guns for hire” who were “extremely well known” to police and organised crime groups alike.
And the investigation is still ongoing.
“There may have been other people at the house, but we’re not quite certain,” Doueihi said.
Nguyen is not alleged to have killed Tran himself, but to have brought the three men who allegedly did to her home and facilitated it.
The eight-year-old injured with the bat had made a “remarkable” physical recovery, Doueihi said, after it was initially feared he would be left with life-long injuries.
