On the afternoon of May 28, a police team in plainclothes noticed a suspected Camry car when it was traveling on a section of National Highway 1A that runs through Quynh Luu district in Nghe An. They signaled for the driver to stop but he ignored their request and sped away.
Immediately, Lieutenant Tran Manh Tien and other officers chased after the car on police motorcycles. After 20 kilometers, in Dien Chau district, the driver changed direction to National Highway 48.
The policemen had to fire some bullets to demand the driver to stop but he continued to speed up.
The driver did not surrender even after the car had a puncture. The officers later overtook the car and parked their bikes in front.
The police found three frozen tiger carcasses weighing 300 kilograms in total inside the vehicle along with weapons and some fake car license plates.
23-year-old Nguyen Dinh Hai hailing from Ha Tinh Province was arrested while his two accomplices managed to flee away.
Hai confessed that he was hired by a man from his hometown to transport a package of wild boars to Quynh Luu District in Nghe An Province. He added he did not know the animals were tigers.
The police have handed over the dead tigers and the car to economic police forces in Nghe An for further investigations.
As few as 30 wild tigers survive in Vietnam, according to 2011 statistics released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Statistics from the Worldwide Fund for Nature said that 97 per cent of the world's big cats had been lost in just over a century, and only 3,200 remain in the wild.
Tiger is facing risks of extinction as they are hunted down worldwide for their fur, bones and other parts for traditional Chinese medicine.