The messages that flashed across the Reddit and Facebook groups were frantic and urgent.
They started appearing right before Christmas, around Dec. 18, on various online message boards dedicated to the Vietnamese electric vehicle startup VinFast. The people who posted them were sounding the alarm about the disappearance of a man in Ho Chi Minh City named Sonnie Tran, a schoolteacher turned critic who had made a name for himself denouncing the automaker and its parent company, Vingroup.
Until then, Tran had been active on Facebook and Facebook Messenger, posting messages about the company’s manufacturing and finances while communicating with close friends and supporters nearly every day. Suddenly, Tran stopped responding to anyone’s messages, which sent his friends into a frenzy. He was gone, and they feared the worst.
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