Bandits Trail Couple, Rob Them of $2,000

A Huntington Beach couple were robbed at gunpoint after being followed home from a Little Saigon restaurant in Westminster, police said Tuesday.

Hai Nguyen, 51, an administrator for a Garden Grove legal office, was robbed of $2,000 in cash about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday in the driveway of his home in the 10100 block of Kukui Drive. The incident began when a man struck Nguyen’s girlfriend, Quang Pham, 43, over the head as she got out of his car, Huntington Beach Police Lt. Jeff Cope said.

The man then forced a towel into her mouth and robbed Nguyen. The robber, who was identified as Vietnamese, jumped into a car driven by a companion and sped off.

Pham, who was emotionally shaken, was later treated for head lacerations at Humana Hospital-Huntington Beach and released, according to her son, Loc Trung.

“She was hit very hard on the head,” the son said, adding that his mother is employed as a manicurist.

Investigators said the robbery could be the latest in a series of crimes involving Asian gangs, and fits an emerging pattern.

“There’s a lot of residential robberies that have taken place and those seem to be done by predominantly female and male Vietnamese gang members. I’m not saying this was gang-related, but it appears to fit that mold,” Cope said.

Marcus Frank, a Westminster police detective specializing in Asian crime, said that four residential robberies were reported in Westminster in the last month, and that some of them had been planned and executed with such military cunning that police dubbed them “home invasions.”

“Having the suspects following them home is something you see more of in Los Angeles, where gang members target the high rollers at gambling casinos,” Frank said.

But just last week, Frank said, a similar robbery almost occurred involving a Vietnamese jeweler and his wife who were followed home by two Vietnamese in a stolen car.

Frank said the couple had stopped for a stop sign at Quartz Street and Brooke Avenue in Westminster when the jeweler’s car was rear-ended by the attackers. When the jeweler asked them for car-insurance information, Frank said, they pulled a gun. One bandit got the jeweler’s car keys and drove off in his car with his wife in it.

“I think they got confused after he started asking all these questions because they rear-ended his car. They let his wife out about two or three blocks away unharmed, but they took his car,” Frank said.

In Tuesday’s robbery, Nguyen may have inadvertently displayed a cash-filled wallet when the couple were dining at the Thanh My Restaurant on Bolsa Avenue in Little Saigon. After paying their bill, the couple then got in Nguyen’s black 560 SEL Mercedes-Benz and drove home unaware that they were being followed.

One suspect was described as 20 to 25 years of age and about 5 feet, 6 inches tall. He wore a long-sleeve, brown turtleneck shirt and black pants.