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Vietnam investigates ring that transports tons of heroin
21/5/2007 16:29

Vietnam is investigating a drug trafficking ring with involvement of nearly 100 people, which has transported tons of heroin across Vietnam in five years, according to local newspapers today.
Between 2002 and late 2006, the ring led by a 28-year-old local woman named Nguyen Thi Thom from Vietnam's Hanoi capital and a 51- year-old man named Nguyen Luong Dan from northern Bac Giang province "traded and transported tons of heroin and other lab- made drugs" in Hanoi capital, some northern and southern localities, including Ho Chi Minh City, the Young People newspaper quoted Tran Quang Trong, head of the Drug Crime Investigation Bureau under the Hanoi Police Department, as saying.
Ring members used their own or rented cars to transport heroin from northwestern provinces like Son La to Hanoi and such other northern localities as Lang Son border province, and transport lab- made drugs, including many new kinds unlisted in management categories of Vietnam and other countries, from southwestern border provinces to Ho Chi Minh City, he said.
Between March and December 2006, local police detained 28 ring members, including Thom and Dan. They also seized 793 grams of heroin, 35 grams of cannabis, 280 methamphetamine pills, four cars, US$20,820 and 11.4 billion Vietnamese dong (US$712,000) in cash, and other relevant documents, Vietnam News newspaper reported.
Local police are further probing into the case, hunting down other ring members, and clarifying factors relating to foreign countries, Vietnam News reported.
In 1996, Hanoi police detected a 34-member drug trafficking ring led by a local man named Vu Xuan Truong, which traded and transported over 400 kg of heroin. Among the drug traffickers, eight were sentenced to death, and seven got life imprisonment sentences.
In Vietnam, possessing, trading or trafficking 600 grams of heroin or 20 kg of opium is punishable by death or life in prison.
Vietnam, as of late 2006, had a total of 160,226 drug addicts, over 70 percent of whom are in the age bracket of 18-35, according to statistics from the country's Ministry of Public Security.
Vietnam and nine other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar hope to achieve a drug-free region by 2015.



Xinhua