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Samoan suspect confesses to hired hit in Vietnam on Sydney gangster

In a rare gun crime in Vietnam, the suspect admitted that he and an accomplice were in Ho Chi Minh City looking for two victims

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Steve Tafia, a Samoan suspect who is accused of the gun killing of an Australian gangster in Ho Chi Minh City, stands alongside Vietnamese police officers. Photo: X/Jacob in Cambodia
Aidan Jones

One of the two Samoan men arrested by Vietnamese police over the killing of an Australian with reported links to Sydney’s criminal underworld outside a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City has admitted that he was hired to carry out a hit on a rival.

Lorenzo Lemalu, 24, was gunned down outside the restaurant last Thursday, in a rare gangland murder involving foreigners using Vietnam as a base for their crime.

Shocking images of the shooting caught on CCTV show flashes from a gun wielded by a hooded man as Lemalu stumbles on a road. A second man also appears to have been shot.

Less than 72 hours after the shooting, Vietnamese police said they had caught two Samoan suspects, named by the country’s public security ministry as Steve Tafia and Vaa Vaa, who were “hiding in the border area between Vietnam and Cambodia”.

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