BREAKING NEWS Bombshell claims emerge after Bankstown mum was kidnapped from her home and brutally murdered

Daily Mail​

19-05-2025

Kidnappers who abducted a mother and shot her dead before leaving her in a burnt-out car had sent her husband countdown messages leading up to her execution.
Thi Kim Tran, 45, was abducted at gunpoint from her Bankstown home, in Sydney 's south-west, on April 17, hours after she finished working at a nail salon.
The mother-of-two was forced to strip naked in her driveway before a group of five masked intruders dragged her into an SUV about 10.30pm and drove away.
The couple's eight-year-old son was also bashed with a baseball bat and left for dead, while their eldest son, 15, was left traumatised by the attack.
The eight-year-old boy woke from a coma two weeks after the attack, in which he suffered severe head injuries.
Ms Tran's body was found in a burning vehicle in nearby Beverly Hills, about 6km from her home, an hour later.
Police believe the group of men who kidnapped Ms Tran had been pursuing her husband, Tung Nguyen, for weeks before turning their attention to his loved ones.
Detectives are investigating if Ms Tran's kidnapping and murder were part of a ploy to force Mr Nguyen into paying a drug debt, T he Daily Telegraph revealed.
'There are conflicting reports as to how much was owed, anywhere between seven kilograms (worth roughly $1.2 million) and 70 kilograms (worth as much as $8 million),' a police source told The Daily Telegraph.
It's alleged a Vietnamese drug cartel had messaged Mr Nguyen ransom countdown messages 20 minutes, 10 minutes and five minutes before stripping Ms Tran and setting her body alight.
'It's unclear if he was out of service range or what, but he didn't receive them,' the police source said.
Investigators are working to find whether Ms Tran was shot in the head before the SUV fire.
A bullet casing was discovered on the floor of the burnt-out vehicle, but forensic pathologists have been unable to confirm if there were bullet wounds on Ms Tran's charred remains.
'You'd expect we'd be able to say definitively one way or the other, but we can't,' the source said.
NSW Police Homicide Squad commander Detective Superintendent Joe Doueihi earlier aired allegations that a gang was behind the murder in a press conference.
He said officers believed there was a 'conflict' between Mr Nguyen and 'upper echelons' of the organised crime network.
'This woman and her children were in no means involved or had knowledge of what their partner or their father was up to,' Superintendent Doueihi said.
Mr Nguyen has been assisting investigators and has not been charged in relation to Ms Tran's death.
Superintendent Doueihi alleged Mr Nguyen had worked for the organised crime group for 'several months' before the attack.
He was previously known to police for minor drug-related offences.
The crime network Mr Nguyen was involved in allegedly manufactured. methamphetamine.
A property in Springdallah, a rural Victorian town almost 1,000km away from the Bankstown home, was a key part of the investigation.
The police source claimed a group of men had burst into a farmhouse on the property where drugs were being manufactured just weeks before Ms Tran's death.
They were looking for Mr Nguyen.
'They broke in and beat up the workers who were there, so they'd been looking for him for some time,' the source said.
Victoria Police raided the alleged drug lab in Springdallah as part of a collaboration with NSW Police Homicide Squad's Strike Force Bushfield.
An associate of Mr Nguyen committed suicide in the weeks after Ms Tran's murder.
However, police believe the man's death at a home in Balmain was due to the breakdown of a personal relationship, rather than guilt over the mother's death.
Ms Tran's coworkers recalled her being 'happy and normal' as she finished work on the day of her death.
As the Easter long weekend approached, she'd been excited to take extra days off and spend quality time with her children.