HANOI, June 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnamese police recently arrested two local people for having fooled 168 others into searching for and buying hundreds of remains they claimed to be remains of US service personnel listed as missing in action (MIA).

    Dong Van Tinh and Hoang Thi Hoa from the southern province of Dong Nai promised that those who buy remains from them with pricesof around 1,000 US dollars will have the right to settle in the United States, local newspaper Youth reported Tuesday.

    To win trust of buyers, the 72-year-old man and the 47-year-oldwoman, who established a so-called "Voluntary and Humanitarian Group", falsified many documents which said they shoulder the taskof searching for MIA remains and sending the group's supporters tothe United States for a better life.

    The two swindlers confessed that bought remains, not MIA ones, from other local people and resold to their victims. The police seized 89 remains in Hoa's house.

    Hundreds of remains of local people, who died in old age, were stolen from cemeteries in several southern localities, especially the Binh Thuan province from 2001 to 2003, the paper said.

    Local police, who are probing into the source of remains, said that Tinh and Hoa will be prosecuted for frauds, and several others for prejudicing graves. Enditem