Dung Hà

Vũ Thị Hoàng Dung (better known by her nickname Dung Hà; 1965 – October 2, 2000) was a Vietnamese female gangster. Born and raised in Haiphong, Dung Hà was a high-ranking criminal member in the city, and during her peak in the 1990s, she and Năm Cam were considered as the two great mob bosses of the Vietnamese underworld. On October 2, 2000, Dung Hà was assassinated under orders from Năm Cam, who had previously been in a feud with Dung Hà in Saigon. This event eventually led to the destruction of Năm Cam and his gang by the police and authorities, as Cam was later sentenced to death for ordering her murder.

Early life Dung Hà was born and raised in Hải Phòng on Trạng Trình street, Hồng Bàng district as the youngest daughter of her family. The street on which she lived on was near the edge of the bustling Iron Market (Chợ Sắt), which at the time was one of the busiest sectors in the port city of Hải Phòng, with many businesses lined up selling wares such as shrimp paste and dried fish. The street was also near both the local bus station and the ferry terminal, giving young Dung Hà exposure to the complicacy of society, such as seeing crimes like theft and witnessing gangsters wandering the streets from an early age. Dung herself was said to have been free-spirited and wild in her youth, and from early on she dropped out of school and quickly became a female gangster near the Tam Bạc bus station.

After Hùng Cốm was arrested, sentenced to death and transferred to a solitary cell for death row inmates at the Hải Phòng detention center, Dung Hà went to the outside of the prison and hatched a bold escape plan against the Trần Phú detention center; using a grenade to intimidate the supervisors within the prison walls, Dung brought alongside a dozen of her followers to block the road and make way for Hùng Cốm to escape to the sea, where a train was waiting to take him to Hong Kong. The grenades however failed to explode and the plan failed miserably. Hùng Cốm was later executed by firing squad after the escape attempt. Despite the failure, Dung Hà's action and devotion to her lover gained her many admirers, and the name “Dung Hà” became more and more notorious within the port city.

Assassination On the night of October 1, 2000, two assassins were directed by a phone call from Hải Bánh to go find Dung Hà. When the assassins found the female gang boss playing in front of the karaoke at 17 Bùi Thị Xuân Street in Bến Thành, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, one of the assassins went up to Dung Hà, pulled out a 9mm revolver and shot her at point-blank range in the head, killing her. Dung Hà's death however would later lead to the downfall of Hải Bánh and Năm Cam's gang, which was later destroyed by the authorities in a series of persecutions that resulted in Năm Cam and several members involved receiving the death penalty for the murder of Dung Hà. Dung Hà's body was later taken back up to the northern where members of the Hải Phòng criminal underworld delivered her funeral service from Trạng Trình street (where Dung once lived) to the Haiphong Opera House.

Legacy Many people in Vietnam, especially in Haiphong considered the night that Dung Hà was shot as a “historical night”. Even until now, people in the port city still think that the gang boss's funeral was unique both in terms of the monumental level and the number of participants. Dung Hà's funeral in a way reminded the people of the mafia godfather's funeral in the world. Many monks and teachers were invited to the funeral to pray for Dung Hà, whose coffin was decorated with flowers. Along the road to the funeral at Dung Hà's house, the younger brothers of her gang stood in two columns, all dressed in black uniform. The disciples of Dung Hà and the many mourners who came were dressed in black vests, with white roses on the chest, eyes wearing dark glasses, and were riding in a black car during the funeral procession.