How the Internet Unmasked The Vietnamese Butcher

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: The Vietnamese Butcher, Telegram, Ben Ditto
2. 5:00 – 10:00: The Vietnamese Butcher, Nguyễn Xuân Đạt, OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam, Vice
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Phi Lê, Hoa Troi, The Vietnamese Butcher, Hà Nội
4. 15:00 – 20:00: The Vietnamese Butcher, Cẩm Thành Chung, Lạng Sơn
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Doan Sáng, Cẩm Thành Chung, Kẻ Tò Mò, Lạng Sơn
6. 25:00 – 30:00: The Vietnamese Butcher, Lạng Sơn, Tết
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Doan Sáng, The Vietnamese Butcher, Motherless
8. 35:00 – 38:07: The Vietnamese Butcher, OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam

Notable quotes from "How the Internet Unmasked The Vietnamese Butcher"

• As the morbidly curious would soon discover, the three Vietnamese Butcher videos were only the tip of the iceberg. They were part of a pack of 11 recordings and 98 photographs…

  about The Vietnamese Butcher · at 4:08

• Have claimed to’ve seen another video in which the killer boils the head in a pot, though if it exists, it hasn’t turned up on the surface web. Countless death clips have…

  about Vice · at 5:13

• X directed me to 106 page dossier which had been created by the OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam community on Facebook. Operating in the shadows using burner accounts for…

  about OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam · at 6:46

• And it didn’t take them long to identify the victim: a 36 year old man called Nguyễn Xuân Đạt.

  about Nguyễn Xuân Đạt · at 8:40

• Meanwhile, other users contacted the few friends listed on Dat’s Facebook profile, hoping that somebody would respond with a lead. One contact, who used the alias Phi Lê…

  about Phi Lê · at 12:02

• Perhaps in an attempt to fish for further victims. Searching for confirmation about Chung’s involvement, OSINT investigators continued to message Dat’s friends, including those…

  about Hoa Troi · at 13:18

• Executioner’s path, they were stepping forward to help advance the investigation, saying they wanted Dat’s killer brought to justice even if he had consented to his fate.…

  about Cẩm Thành Chung · at 19:16

• On November 28th, it was quietly announced that Sang had been arrested and that the suspected crime scene had been sealed off for forensic testing. According to a translation…

  about Doan Sáng · at 30:28

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Doan Sáng — Person · Primary suspect / later confessed perpetrator (as narrated) · 3 mentions · first at 21:21
  Presented as the person allegedly operating accounts tied to 'Cẩm Thành Chung' and later arrested; confession describes killing and dismemberment and links to the crime scene.
• Nguyễn Xuân Đạt — Person · Victim (identified by OSINT community) · 1 mention · first at 8:40
  Identified as the victim in the 'Vietnamese Butcher' videos; his online activity and communications are central to establishing timeline, motive, and suspect linkage.
• Cẩm Thành Chung — Person · Alias / named account attributed to the executioner · 2 mentions · first at 19:29
  Name shown on Facebook chats released by the whistleblower; used as the key pivot from an unknown 'Chung' to a traceable identity and location, later linked to Doan Sáng.
• Phi Lê — Person · Online contact / witness source (alias) · 2 mentions · first at 12:07
  Responded to OSINT outreach; claimed to have met Đạt and asserted knowledge of the killer ('Chung'), providing a key lead tying victim to suspect via shared forums.
• Hoa Troi — Person · Online respondent / possible impersonator (alias) · 2 mentions · first at 13:29
  Claimed to be the killer and then went silent; treated by OSINT as either roleplay, an alias of the real killer, or an account controlled by the killer—adds uncertainty and investigative branching.
• Ben Ditto — Person · Referenced journalist (Vice) · 1 mention · first at 0:57
  Authored the Vice article that initially framed the story and popularized the 'snuff' claim; serves as the episode’s entry point into the case.
  Several months ago I stumbled upon this Vice article by Ben Ditto, titled A Vietnamese Murder Has Given the World Its First Real ‘Snuff’ Movie. It detailed the story of three…
• Armin Meiwes — Person · Referenced historical case (comparative example) · 1 mention · first at 7:48
  Cited as one of the only known prior cases of consensual cannibalism, used to justify OSINT’s investigative hypothesis about online cannibal forums.
  Were so rare, OSINT did have a fairly good idea of where to start their own investigation. Up until that point, there had only been two known cases where one human being…
• Bernd Brandes — Person · Referenced victim (comparative example) · 1 mention · first at 7:48
  Mentioned as the willing volunteer killed by Armin Meiwes; supports the episode’s comparison to rare 'consensual cannibalism' precedents.
  Were so rare, OSINT did have a fairly good idea of where to start their own investigation. Up until that point, there had only been two known cases where one human being…
• Detlef Guenzel — Person · Referenced historical case (comparative example) · 1 mention · first at 7:55
  Second German precedent cited by OSINT as an analogue for online cannibal-forum recruitment; used to motivate investigative direction.
  That point, there had only been two known cases where one human being allowing themselves to been cannibalised by another. Both occurred in Germany. The first was the infamous…
• Wojciech Stempniewicz — Person · Referenced victim (comparative example) · 1 mention · first at 8:00
  Mentioned as the victim in the Detlef Guenzel case; reinforces the rarity and online-forum linkage theme.
  That point, there had only been two known cases where one human being allowing themselves to been cannibalised by another. Both occurred in Germany. The first was the infamous…

Companies & orgs

• OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam — Company · 2 mentions · first at 6:46
• Vice — Company · 1 mention · first at 5:24
• Motherless — Company · 2 mentions · first at 9:01
  Little is known about who Dat was as a person as he lived an incredibly private life and had few friends - at least in the real world. Online, however, he moved in very lively…
• Telegram — Company · 1 mention · first at 4:13
  As the morbidly curious would soon discover, the three Vietnamese Butcher videos were only the tip of the iceberg. They were part of a pack of 11 recordings and 98 photographs…
• Kẻ Tò Mò — Company · 1 mention · first at 20:01
  Meet at a specific address: a street in Hữu Lũng town, Lạng Sơn province. The pin seemed to be just outside a government tax department. For the first time, the hunt for Chung…

Concepts & topics

• The Vietnamese Butcher — Concept · 12 mentions · first at 1:10

Places & events

• Lạng Sơn — Place · 3 mentions · first at 19:48
  In those messages, Chung said that Dat's bones have already become fertiliser. He invited the whistleblower to discuss his upcoming beheading in person, and asked to meet at a…
• Hà Nội — Place · 1 mention · first at 12:15
  Meanwhile, other users contacted the few friends listed on Dat’s Facebook profile, hoping that somebody would respond with a lead. One contact, who used the alias Phi Lê…
• Tết — Event · 1 mention · first at 25:32
  Commit a murder inside his workplace? Doesn’t that strike you as a risky decision? Well, there’s actually a grim logic to his choice of venue. The assumed execution date –…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Over the 10 years I’ve been making YouTube content, I’ve often begun videos by saying something like “this is one of the most disturbing mysteries I’ve ever covered”. I suppose the longer you stare into the abyss of the internet, the darker the things you end up finding. What can I say — it’s an endless black hole of debauchery. But today’s subject genuinely might be the most disturbing thing I’ve ever encountered online. In my opinion, it belongs to a tier of horror most people never come across — and frankly, never should. This upload isn’t a treasure map to the material I’ll be discussing; the raw footage is definitely not something you should ever go searching for. Anything I do show here will be heavily cropped or blurred, though fair warning, just hearing about the details may not be for the faint of heart. Phew, okay, if you’re still with me after that lengthy disclaimer… let’s dive in.

0:57 Several months ago I stumbled upon this Vice article by Ben Ditto, titled “A Vietnamese Murder Has Given the World Its First Real ‘Snuff’ Movie”. It detailed the story of three video clips which surfaced on the shock site WatchPeopleDie in late July, 2025; known collectively as The Vietnamese Butcher. The most shared video in the collection, “The Execution”, is as simple as it is horrifying: a top-down shot of man, lying on a tarp spread across a tiled bathroom floor, pleasuring himself. Beneath his neck is a wooden chopping block. The muffled sound of dogs and vehicles can be heard in the distance, suggesting it was filmed in the middle of civilisation. But there’s nothing civilised about what happens next. When the man says he’s about to finish, a second figure standing just off-screen steps into view, raises a meat cleaver, and in several brutal blows severs his head. The grisly scene is all caught in close-up

2:01 detail. Blood sprays across the room; the victim’s body twitches and goes limp. The executioner then immediately gets to work, pulling the man’s head out of view and slicing apart his body with a level of precision that suggested this wasn’t his first rodeo. Through heavy breaths he makes an incision from the neck straight down to the pubic bone, splitting the incision sideways. The screen then cuts to black. The clip went viral almost immediately, mainly because of the impact it had on those who viewed it — though most WPD users were well acquainted with footage of death and depravity, this one felt different — more coordinated, more professionally set-up. The room had been properly lit, the framing was intimate, and as would later be revealed, the “money shot” was filmed by multiple cameras set up around the room. A second, longer clip, filmed from a low angle, would eventually surface, showing the

2:54 same incident from a different perspective. The next video in the collection, filmed immediately after the execution, has since been labelled “The Butchering”, and shows the victim’s body being methodically dismembered. Limbs separated and arranged. Organs washed in a sink. Human meat placed in pots and on plates. Certain body parts being inserted into the victim’s mouth. But of the three videos that appeared in July, perhaps the most interesting is the first clip, called The Rehearsal. It shows the victim in an office setting, still alive, placing his head on a chopping block while a figure wearing what looks like adidas sportswear and a Guy Fawkes mask brings his cleaver down to the man’s neck, as if illustrating how he’ll deliver the fatal blow. Towards the end of the clip the kneeling man asks for the cameras to be turned off. The masked soon-to-be killer comforts his soon-to-be victim. Both men stand up, and the clip ends. The

3:55 implication of these two other videos was clear: that the victim wasn’t only aware he was being filmed, but had willingly allowed himself to be killed for the purposes of cannibalisation. As the morbidly curious would soon discover, the three Vietnamese Butcher videos were only the tip of the iceberg. They were part of a “pack” of 11 recordings and 98 photographs, being advertised and sold on Telegram, an encrypted app often used by criminals due to how difficult it is to trace exchanges. Limited access to the pack reportedly cost around 100 dollars US, while full access cost around 600. The pack had apparently been in circulating on the black market since February, five months before parts of it were uploaded to WPD. Not all of its surfaced yet. But what has is enough to turn the stomach of even the most experienced gore hunter. In one series of since leaked images, the victim’s heart, kidneys and other organs were shown cooked in a herbal stew

4:58 with red dates and goji berries. Other parts were seemingly turned into a curry dish. In another set of images, the executioner poses in a mirror, holding the victim’s freshly severed head. Some have claimed to’ve seen another video in which the killer boils the head in a pot, though if it exists, it hasn’t turned up on the surface web. Countless death clips have circulated online over the years, but The Vietnamese Butcher hit the internet like a freight train, with Vice labelling it the first verified snuff video. As per their article, snuff is defined as a murder filmed for commercial distribution — They’re not just videos of real killings like 3 Guys 1 Hammer - they’re not a compilation of repurposed gore clips. They have to’ve been produced specifically to make a profit. Not for pleasure. Not to inspire fear. But for monetary gain. Now we can sit here and debate that definition ’til the cows come home, but according to criminologists,

6:02 no murder movies (on the internet or otherwise) have ever been produced for the primary purpose of turning a profit — until now, perhaps… After reading through the Vice write-up, I figured the mystery made for a good segment in one of my Disturbing Things I Found on the Internet videos, however, I couldn’t find any other English language outlets covering the story. I waited for more information to come out, but it never did, and slowly the case faded from my mind. That is, until last week, when I was contacted by one of my viewers. This individual, who I’ll call X, suggested that I look into the mystery again, as there had recently been some huge developments.

6:46 X directed me to 106 page dossier which had been created by the OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam community on Facebook. Operating in the shadows using burner accounts for their own safety, the group had been conducting their own investigation into the footage, collecting open source evidence in an effort to name the victim and unmask the killer. This is the story of their investigation… OSINT (as I’ll now refer to the Facebook group as) began by doing a cursory bit of googling to see how much information about The Vietnamese Butcher was already available. Of course, nothing came up. Despite the victim’s face being clearly visible, his family (if he had any) hadn’t stepped forward to identity him, and there were no indication was the police were looking in to the videos origins. However, because the circumstances of the mystery were so rare, OSINT did have a fairly good idea of where to start their own investigation. Up until

7:43 that point, there had only been two known cases where one human being allowing themselves to been cannibalised by another. Both occurred in Germany. The first was the infamous case of Armin Meiwes, who ate willing volunteer Bernd Brandes. And the other was of policeman Detlef Guenzel, who killed Polish businessman Wojciech Stempniewicz - though there’s no hard evidence Guenzel ate parts of Stempniewicz, it’s strongly suspected based on their chat history. In both instances, the participants had met through online cannibal forums, Cannibal Cafe and Zambian Meat respectively, and so it stood to reason that the same was true of the men in The Vietnamese Butcher. Given that both the victim and the masked perpetrator spoke with authentic Vietnamese accents, the unofficial title of the content appeared to be accurate, and OSINT sleuths began trawling through Vietnamese online groups dedicated to so-called “long pork”.

8:40 And it didn’t take them long to identify the victim: a 36 year old man called Nguyễn Xuân Đạt. Little is known about who Dat was as a person as he lived an incredibly private life and had few friends - at least in the real world. Online, however, he moved in very lively and very illicit circles. Since around 2019, Dat had been active on Motherless (an explicit file-sharing platform only accessible by VPN, that catered to the most hardcore, deviant tastes). On that site and various other extreme forums, he used variations of the handle “datbeheading”. His posts, both on Facebook and these more niche sites, were fixated on decapitation and cannibalism — not of other people mind you, but of himself. In one leaked message purported to’ve been written by Dat, he reasoned that “Not only am I ugly, but I’m also full of diseases. I can’t afford to live freely like normal folks. I’ve depended on my parents my whole life - What else could I do? I truly am a prisoner of my very own fate.”

9:57 Fed up with his lot in life, he instead chose to withdraw from society and dedicate the rest of his life to his deepest, darkest desire. Online he spoke openly about his “final fantasy”: to be slain at the peak of ecstasy by a female executioner and then eaten afterwards — a subject that wasn’t out of place in the spaces he frequented. On one forum dedicated to Japanese manga, an ero guro story called “Applicant For Death” was translated into Vietnamese at the, quote, “request of Mr. datbeheading.” The narrative revolves around a man who, while in bed with two women, has his head lopped off with a katana. The head then continues to describe the unbelievable sensation for a few seconds. To those digging through Dat’s post history, this manga looked less like a piece of entertainment he wanted to consume, and more like a blueprint he wanted to follow. For years he rigorously tried to find someone who could make his dream a reality,

11:02 and slowly amassed a virtual group of fiends who displayed similarly abnormal psychological tendencies. Evidently, though, his attempts to find a female executioner were unsuccessful. Later, OSINT members managed to track down an account on a gay forum believed to belong to Dat. In one post, he’d shared his mobile number. They were able to trace that number back to a Zalo account, which listed Dat’s birth date as March 10th, 1989. Cross-referencing details, netizens were able to find a man with Dat’s name and date of birth listed in a Thái Bình village registry. When two users called the village head directly, he confirmed that there was a man by that name who left the village after his father passed.

11:49 Dat’s mother, his only known living relative who reportedly struggles with mental health issues, lost contact with her son, hence why nobody came forward to identify him when the videos surfaced. Meanwhile, other users contacted the few friends listed on Dat’s Facebook profile, hoping that somebody would respond with a lead. One contact, who used the alias Phi Lê, replied. Phi Lê was a fellow decapitation fantasist. They claimed to’ve met Dat once, briefly, and said that he worked as a fishmonger at Phùng Khoang Market in Hanoi. Crucially, though, Phi Lê also stated that they knew Dat’s killer — a man they’d both interacting with on various forums. A man who was a part of their bizarre online community. A man by the name of “Chung”. According to Phi Le and others, Dat had been in contact with Chung for quite some time, but had become frustrated with him as he wouldn’t commit to a firm execution date. Eventually, however, Chung agreed to

12:52 kill Dat at a specific time and place. As shown in a screenshot provided by Phi Le, after the execution Dat’s account sent out a private message to one of his contacts, which simply read “Dat has been beheaded”. It seems that Chung didn’t only have access to Dat’s social media accounts, but was actively using them to stay in contact with his inner circle of death enthusiasts, perhaps in an attempt to fish for further victims. Searching for confirmation about Chung’s involvement, OSINT investigators continued to message Dat’s friends, including those he made on a male homosexual group called "Likes Beheading”. One member, going by the name Hoa Troi, responded, and even claimed to be the killer in the videos. His confession was brief, and following it, Hoa Troi stopped responding. Following this, exchanges between Hoa Troi and other people (including Dat) were found, in which he offered “murder services”. In the minds of OSINT members,

13:57 one of three things had to be true: that Hoa Troi was just roleplaying and inserting himself into the case for a thrill, that Hoa Troi was an alias used by the real executioner Chung, or more worryingly, that Hoa Troi was another of Chung’s victims whose account he had access to. After combing through Đạt’s Facebook history, forum posts and communications, the community constructed a timeline. And it looked like this: January 25th, 2025 – On Facebook, Đạt posted a worrying status update, which simply read “3 hours left until the execution.” On that same day, his various other forum accounts recorded their last ever activity. This is broadly considered the day that The Vietnamese Butcher was filmed and Dat’s life came to an end.

14:53 February 25th, 2025 – A message went out from Đạt’s account to one of his contacts explaining that Dat was dead. It’s believed the message was actually sent by his executioner, Chung. That same month, the Vietnamese Butcher videos and photos went up for sale on the black market. June 10th, 2025 – Dat’s Facebook account posted its final ever status update, which read “From today, I’m logging off this account for good!” Further evidence that the killer was still maintaining his account. Following that final message, Dats page remained online. When the Vietnamese Butcher videos surfaced on WPD in July and his page began to receive a lot of traffic, the account was manually terminated.

15:43 Proving that timeline definitively would require access the kind of tools only law enforcement have access to. But for those following the breadcrumbs, it was a disturbingly coherent story. So, those investigating the mystery had found their victim, and all-but confirmed the time and date of his death… but the most pressing question still remained unanswered — who was the masked man in the footage? The one they knew as “Chung”? Though some naively thought he was innocent of any wrongdoing because Dat willingly offered up his life, in no country in the world is it lawful to kill someone with their consent. Euthanasia is the obvious exception, but that’s for patients who meet specific criteria — it’s carried out by licensed healthcare professionals under detailed legal and medical safeguards, and any killing outside those rules is still considered homicide. Whoever Chung was, he was 100% guilty of murder. Who knows how

16:39 many other time’s this cleaver-wielding lunatic had preyed on vulnerable victims to fulfil his own twisted murder fantasies? Who knows when he might do the same again? It was imperative that they track this man down and unmask him. And thankfully, they had something to work with. As mentioned, in one photo, Chung appeared in a mirror holding Đạt’s head. And enough of his features were visible to tease out details: He had a stocky build. A receding or balding hairline. A scar over one eyebrow. Monolid eyes. A green mask that some speculated might be of a military type. And most importantly: he had a striking birthmark pattern on the arm and armpit, and a tattoo reading “That Day 13-9.” Hunting for clues, netizens began examining Chung’s surroundings. In the “Butchering” video, he moved through what looked like a small kitchen with blue-and-white patterned floor tiles, red baseboards, a green door,

17:43 red wall tiles around the counter, and a white countertop. At one point, a LaVie water bottle was visible on a table; as was a yellow bottle of Chinese-brand washing-up liquid near the sink. Some users said the decor, utensils and cleaning products looked exactly like those seen and sold in Vietnam’s northern border provinces, which helped to narrow down the search. But frustratingly, that’s where OSINT hit a dead end. By late August, the case was burning out. Đạt’s page had locked. All the initial suspects had been cleared. The threads grew quieter, and for months no new developments were announced. It seemed the “Vietnamese Butcher” was destined to join the countless other internet mysteries that would never be solved…

18:24 Then, just last month, the story exploded again. In the third week of November 2025, an anonymous Facebook user, who we’ll refer to as The Whistleblower (or WB), stepped forward, and claimed to have been in direct contact with both Đạt and the executioner. This person shared fresh screenshots of their final correspondence from Đạt, which they received on January 25ht, 2025. In a message sent at 2:40PM, Dat said the execution would occur in about three hours — putting his time of death somewhere around 5:30–6:00PM. Dat also mentioned having shared the whistleblower’s details with the executioner – suggesting WB, too, had considered offering themselves up to be butchered. Since then, WB had clearly changed their mind. Instead of stepping into the executioner’s path, they were stepping forward to help advance the investigation, saying they wanted Dat’s killer brought to justice even if he had “consented” to his fate. Crucially, WB released

19:29 their chat history with the supposed killer. A man whose name on Facebook was “Cẩm Thành Chung.” In those messages, Chung said that “"Dat's bones have already become fertiliser.” He invited the whistleblower to discuss his upcoming beheading in person, and asked to meet at a specific address: a street in Hữu Lũng town, Lạng Sơn province. The pin seemed to be just outside a government tax department. For the first time, the hunt for “Chung” had something solid: a full name and a physical location. Enter a YouTube channel called “Kẻ Tò Mò” – “The Curious One.” This creator had been covering the case for some time using 3D reconstructions of the crime scenes. Now, with a name and address, he started cross-referencing everything the community had found with public social media profiles, and stated that he had identified the killer. However, before he could reveal anything else, he presumably received some form of death threat,

20:32 and posted “The forces behind this are too powerful — powerful enough to swallow our entire team — so the investigation will end here”. He also said that if anything happened to him, all of the information he’d found would become public. Along with that message, he shared an image of the suspect’s face and a blurred screenshot of one of his usernames. It didn’t take long for OSINT members to unblur the name. Thanhchung11111. From that point, the web of connections began to form: The handle “thanhchung five 1s” (and similar variants) appeared across multiple platforms: anonymous forums, Instagram and TikTok, many of which were linked with a Twitter account called “doansangls”, which in turn linked back to a Facebook account belonging to one Đoàn Văn Sáng, a seemingly normal, married father of two in his late 50s who lived in Lang Son, close to the Chinese border. He was a retired deputy head of a Market Management Department (or MMD)

21:41 team, responsible for inspecting suspect goods, as well as the head of Lạng Sơn city’s Doan family, a large clan with thousands of members. Sang’s photos showed a man who lived a comfortable lifestyle. He held a senior bureaucratic role, enjoyed a large amount of status within his community and had strong ties to the government not only through his own work, but also through his wife and son’s. Could he really be the Chung people were searching for? Well, as it would turn out, Sang’s eldest son’s name was Thanh Chung… and that same son’s birthdate just so happened to be the 13th of September, a date which matched the tattoo on the executioner’s upper-arm: That Day 13-9. It was a coincidence that was hard to ignore. As were the clothes his son had been pictured wearing — which matched perfectly with the clothes worn by the masked figure in The Rehearsal video. Though some think this points towards Sang’s son being

22:35 involved in the production, the masked individual clearly has a receding hairline and a body type that more closely matches suspect Sang - perhaps he borrowed his son’s sportswear, perhaps they owned a matching pair. Either way, private messages sent by the Cam Thanh Chung profile contained photos which strongly suggested the person operating the account was indeed Sang, and that he was using his own child’s name online as a cover. Though some think Sang may not’ve been working alone, there’s zero evidence at this point that his son was involved in any way.

23:10 People began poring over Sang’s old photos, including ones from a second, largely abandoned Facebook account that he hadn’t locked down in time, and started looking at images side-by-side. And what they found was chilling: Sang had a circular birthmark on his shin, which matched a mark visible on the executioner’s leg. A prominent birthmark on his right bicep and armpit area, was also very similar to the one seen in the butcher’s photos. Scars and marks on Sang’s face lined up with those seen on the killer, as did the tattoo placement — and his hairline and facial structure were eerily similar. This image showing the outside of Sang’s house also hides another hidden detail — a pair of flip-flops identical to the ones worn by the killer in The Execution clip.

23:57 Digging deeper, people soon found a TikTok video Sang had filmed at an MMD building known as Market Management Team No. 3. The background of the office he filmed in is identical to that seen in the Rehearsal video, down to the same plastic plants, blue fan blades and misaligned cabinets. Others dug up a news article which mentioned the Market Management Department Sang worked for - one which included a photo taken at the department’s old Team No. 4 location, where Sang was second in command. In the image, Sang can be seen inspecting some goods in front of what looked like the same kitchen seen in the Butchering video, with the same green doors, red tile trim, blue floor tiles, red kitchen wall tiles and and white kitchen counter.

24:41 The location of the “execution video” couldn’t be determined as it was filmed in a generic bathroom, though it doesn’t make sense that the killer would transport a dead body to a different location for butchering. Using common sense, the most likely place for the execution to’ve taken place is the same building as where the butchering was conducted. Images have since leaked from inside the Team No. 4 bathroom, now known as the most depressing toilet in the world. Looks familiar, right? Sang retired from his position in 2025, but was still working for the MMD when Dat was killed. But why would a government employee commit a murder inside his workplace? Doesn’t that strike you as a risky decision? Well, there’s actually a grim logic to his choice of venue. The assumed execution date – January 25th – was the beginning of the Tết holiday, when the Vietnamese ring in the Lunar New Year. On that

25:38 day, government offices would’ve been deserted. On top of that, a Market Management Department office would have a kitchen, cooking gear, and an incinerator for destroying confiscated goods. Sang supposedly volunteered to remain at the office for 5 days during the Luna New Year period while all the other officers and employees took a break. As the online dragnet tightened, Sang found himself at the centre of a digital storm. He’d secretly been a member of online communities discussing the case, including the OSINT Facebook group, monitoring the investigation, reading the threads, commenting on the updates; no doubt feeling a thrill at being the hidden villain in a story the whole country is whispering about. He’d even reacted with laughing emojis when users expressed their frustration at the investigation’s dwindling progress. After being exposed however, he began leaving his own series of bizarre and agitated posts on the group’s timeline. “I am

26:39 the executioner. Who can catch me? Let me tell you straight, you are the real executioners. Because you want more people to die so you can celebrate, isn't that right? I've lived 60 years in this world, I'm no longer afraid of death.” // Anyone who wants to meet me is invited to my house. // Who exposed me? Show yourself. To some, this looked like the guilty flailing of a man suddenly realising the internet had found him out. To others, it was the panicked confusion of someone being falsely accused on a massive scale. Perhaps out of loyalty, Sang’s son came to his defence in an equally strange way — posting (and later deleting) a photo of his lunch with the caption “Come on, it’s just a few pieces of human meat.” Likely just a taunting bit of dark humour, but I’m going to censor that image anyway just in case.

27:34 At this juncture, the evidence was compelling, and digital forensics added more layers. Some users attempted to reset the passwords for two of Sang’s email addresses, which both routed two-factor authentication through the same Oppo Reno12 5G device. Password reset attempts for an email linked to Đạt’s phone number also pinged that same device. Another entry in OSINT's growing list of coincidences. Looking at the digital trail associated with Sang’s online handles, a disturbing profile emerged: the man behind those accounts appeared to have started out using social media to seek casual flings and flirtations on gay forums, then over the course of 2 decades gradually adopted a “master” persona – someone who wants to dominate, humiliate, and torture his partners. Eventually, he developed an obsession with cutting and cannibalism. In 2022, Sang uploaded photos of a dismembered body to a forum,

28:34 saying he wanted to toughen the other members up. The images were later removed, and where he sourced them from remains unclear. Screenshots also show him trying to order sliced off pieces of “male anatomy” (let’s say) from suppliers in southern Vietnam – parts believed to’ve come from gender affirmation surgeries, or from men willing to sell body parts for money. In the eyes of the Vietnamese online community, the stack of coincidences against Sang – the body marks, the tattoo, the kitchen, offices, devices, addresses, handles, the post history – was enough to label him the prime suspect. Now they just needed the authorities to actually investigate and confirm their suspicion through the use of forensics - both physical and digital.

29:20 Yet despite being made aware of the Vietnamese Butcher videos, for months, the authorities seemingly made no effort to investigate them. Comments made on Lạng Sơn's police page asking them to take action were seemingly deleted. Some called this laziness on the police’s part, others thought they were trying to protect Vietnam’s safe image by not drawing attention to the case, and others still labelled them corrupt. Given Sang’s status and ties to The Party, many feared that he may’ve been using his influence to shut down the investigation, and (given the attention he was now receiving), might start to target individual members of the Facebook group.

29:56 As a safety precaution, the majority of members continued their investigation anonymously. After spending months compiling digital breadcrumbs and spreading awareness, the then 20,000 strong OSINT & Cyber Investigation Community created the 106 page document detailing their findings, going so far as to translate it into English to maximise its reach. The PDF went viral. In a matter of days, the Facebook group exploded in size, and their evidence became too compelling to ignore… On November 28th, it was quietly announced that Sang had been arrested and that the suspected crime scene had been sealed off for forensic testing. According to a translation of the police report, they found three teeth suspected to be human under the kitchen sink, as well as numerous bone fragments located in the septic tank of the restroom, in the drainage cavity in the kitchen, and in the water channel behind the kitchen. Forensic tests are still ongoing. The report also

30:59 states that they conducted a search of Doan Sáng’s home. This resulted in the discovery and seizure of two jackets matching what the perpetrator was wearing in the Rehearsal video, as well as a space heater matching the one seen in the Execution video. Investigators also seized a mobile phone believed to’ve belonged to Đạt, which was being used by Sáng’s elder sister. When questioned, she said that Sáng had given her the phone to use. Following his arrest, Sang admitted to being behind The Vietnamese Butcher. His official confession, (as it currently stands), reads as follows: Around 2020, Sáng became acquainted with Đạt through social media. After talking for a period of time, Đạt confided in Sáng that he was participating in a group operating through a website called “motherless”.

31:51 Đạt repeatedly invited Sáng to join this group. At first, Sáng found it barbaric and did not dare to join or participate. However, as their conversations continued, Sáng continued to learn and research various types of sexual violence, homosexual sex, and eventually joined. Over time, Đạt continued telling Sáng about his wish to be slain in a specific manner. At one point, Đạt told Sáng he was willing to pay over 10 million Dong (around 380 dollars) to rent a location where this scenario could be carried out. By July 2024, Sáng agreed and expressed a desire to perform the slaying as Đạt wished. On the 25th of January 2025, Sáng summoned Đạt to the Market Management building. When Đạt arrived, he brought two cleavers for Sáng to use. At around dusk, Sáng killed Đạt exactly as shown in the video clips circulated online. After killing Đạt, Sáng used a knife to cut the victim’s body into multiple sections, separating bones, flesh,

32:55 and internal organs. He placed the parts into a pot and boiled them, with the stated purpose of preventing rapid decomposition and odour. He then smashed the bones and placed both flesh and bone into approximately 10 plastic bags (a small portion was reportedly fed to dogs). He disposed of the remains at various locations, mainly by throwing them into public trash bins. As for the two cleavers used as the weapons: on 27 January 2025, while traveling home from work, Sáng disposed of them by placing them into the container of a handcart parked along the roadside. Following the incident, he continued to go to work as if nothing had happened.

33:32 Some people take umbrage with how Sang’s confession is presented, saying that he’s spinning the situation so he sounds like the victim — that he was effectively hypnotised or manipulated by Đạt into following instructions — when there’s plenty of evidence that he’s been digging around in depraved online rabbit holes for decades, has a post history in which he talks about wanting to kill and eat people, and was actively trying to recruit the Whistleblower as his next victim. Information is still coming out about this case as we speak. Still, thanks in large part to the investigative work on the OSINT Facebook group, Doan Sang will stand trial for Dat’s slaying, and depending on how things proceed, could face the death penalty. But this may not be the end of the story. Now with more information to work with, it’s clear that this case doesn’t meet Vice’s definition of snuff, as Sang had filmed the videos primarily to fulfil

34:29 his own twisted desires. I think it’s safe to say profit came secondary to that. But what if Sang wasn’t actually the one selling the content? As mentioned, before surfacing on shock sites, The Vietnamese Butcher was being distributed by unknown Chinese-speaking individuals through encrypted messaging apps. At present, we don’t know if that was Sang, people he’d shared the content with online, or more worryingly, dark web associates who helped him produce “home movies”. This has led many to come up with a dark theory. That Sang wasn’t some lone wolf — but part of a broader black market of snuff traders operating throughout East and South-East Asia.

35:14 Other similar cases have already started to surface on the Chinese platform Baidu Tieba, with anons selling real footage of chopped-up Asian men. As uncovered by Vice in their article, one message from a Chinese distributor selling his wares read: “Price is 89 Yuan to join the regular group. 198 to join the large group. It’s a stable group that’s been around for four or five years. Tens of thousands of users. Dumping corpses, body dismembering, execution etc. Necrophilia is in the ‘ice love’ group… if you just want pure clean bodies, that’s called ‘forensic’…” And that’s perhaps the most disturbing part of this entire saga. That The Vietnamese Butcher could just be one small piece of a giant puzzle — that there are potentially many more videos just like it being bought and sold by nefarious individuals that have yet to be leaked. People who kill others because they ask for it, or in some cases, just because they can get away with

36:17 it. Some who sell human organs as exotic meat, others who sell them for transplant. Perhaps time will tell whether that’s true or not. What is certain is that this particular case has rocked Vietnam to the core. And while official channels remain pretty quiet, the only thing ordinary people can do is keep the story alive so it isn’t buried under the next wave of headlines. Again, I implore you all not to go searching for any of the media discussed in this video - it’s psychologically damaging, and depending on where you live, it could be considered illegal to view.

36:57 All credit for this investigation goes to the thousands of collaborators over on the OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam Facebook page and elsewhere, as well as the work done by YouTuber The Curious One. I’d like to personally thank my anonymous viewer X for contacting me about this case and keeping me updated as it developed. Before the video ends, I’d also like to say a huge thank you to my supporters here on YouTube and over on Patreon, especially my biggest supporters…

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "How the Internet Unmasked The Vietnamese Butcher"?

In order: 0:00 The Vietnamese Butcher, Telegram, Ben Ditto; 5:00 The Vietnamese Butcher, Nguyễn Xuân Đạt, OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam, Vice; 10:00 Phi Lê, Hoa Troi, The Vietnamese Butcher, Hà Nội; 15:00 The Vietnamese Butcher, Cẩm Thành Chung, Lạng Sơn; 20:00 Doan Sáng, Cẩm Thành Chung, Kẻ Tò Mò, Lạng Sơn; 25:00 The Vietnamese Butcher, Lạng Sơn, Tết; 30:00 Doan Sáng, The Vietnamese Butcher, Motherless; 35:00 The Vietnamese Butcher, OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam.

What is mentioned in this Lazy Masquerade episode?

19 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including The Vietnamese Butcher, Doan Sáng, Nguyễn Xuân Đạt, OSINT & Cyber Investigation Việt Nam, Cẩm Thành Chung, Vice. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How the Internet Unmasked The Vietnamese Butcher"?

The episode runs 38 min; the transcript is about 5,855 words in 41 timestamped sections.

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