The two African men Thursday were riding a motorbike when they allegedly snatched the woman’s bag and knocked her off the back of a xe om on District 1’s Ben Chuong Duong Street, police and witnesses said.

Hoang Quoc Tuan who was driving his taxi on the street at the time, rammed his car into the robbers’ motorbike several times to make them stop. He caught the Nigerian man who had been sitting on the back and recovered the woman’s bag.

The arrested man denied robbing anyone after he was taken to the police station and offered a false name – George Onyebeke.

The police later found out his real name was George Obed. He arrived in Vietnam on August 30 and his passport has been kept by Tan Phu police since late October as his visa had expired.

Obed had fled while the police were working on his passport case.

Like Obed, many Africans come to Vietnam as tourists and overstay their visas.

Tran Van Du, head of the Ministry of Public Security’s Foreigners Management Office, said Thursday his office was working with the Foreign Ministry to improve the way to deal with the problem and still maintain good relationships with offenders’ home countries in Africa.

The city police force’s Immigration Department said from November 1 to November 15, it dealt with 109 offenses committed by foreigners, including failure to produce identity documents, expired visas and disturbing public order.

Africans committed 95 percent of the infringements, the department said. The African offenders included 99 Nigerians, one South African and one Ghanaian.

But to identify where offenders without any identification came from was difficult. “It’s hard to find out who and where to send them back to,” Du said.

Du said the work was time consuming and “sensitive and complicated” because of relationships with African governments.

He said the office has sent some Africans who overstayed their visas or committed crimes back to their country saying there was “only a small number of them left.”

According to lawyer Nguyen Ba Son, Vietnam’s authorities should be stricter when checking immigration papers.

“There should be stronger coordination between domestic agencies and Vietnam’s foreign agencies abroad to prevent people immigrating to Vietnam for the wrong reasons,” he said.

Reported by Dam Huy