If they shoot all drug dealers, Cambodia wouldn't have any generals anymore!

Thang being escorted out of the court to a prison-van after receiving the death sentence (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Vietnamese drug trafficker gets death

Wed, January 30, 2013
Tuoitrenews

Yesterday the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court sentenced a 35-year-old man to death for trafficking 7.3 kilograms of heroin from Cambodia to Vietnam.

Nguyen Van Thang, who lived in Tan Binh District, was charged with “illegally transporting drugs”, the court said.

According to the indictment from the local prosecutor’s office, Thanh transported the drugs because he wanted to make easy money quickly.

Thang trafficked drugs from Cambodia to Vietnam from 2008 until his arrest in July 2011.

His actions were especially dangerous to society since he transported a very large volume of drugs.

In 2008 Thang moved to Cambodia and met Le Huy Thao, a drug trader who is currently being hunted by police. In early 2011, Thao lured Thang into working with a drug trafficking ring by selling drugs in HCMC.

Thang returned to the city and rented a house in Tan Binh District where he could meet potential drug buyers.

He later purchased two heroin cakes (weighing 337 grams each) for VND162 million (US$7,790) per cake, and 1.5 kilograms of methamphetamine for VND110 million per kilogram. He then re-sold the drugs in the city and made VND78 million.

On July 10, 2011, Thao returned to Vietnam and met Thang in HCMC. He then asked Thang to take a car to Tay Ninh Province and collect a drug shipment from a trader.

After receiving 7.3 kilograms of drugs, including 14 heroin cakes weighing 4.8 kg in total and 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine,. Thang hid the contraband in the car and returned to HCMC.

Thang was stopped by police at the An Suong Crossroads in District 12, and the drugs were seized.

The car’s driver and Thang’s girlfriend, who accompanied him on the trip, are considered innocent since they did not know that Thang had hidden the drugs in the car, the police said.

In last December, the southern Tay Ninh province People’s Court sentenced a 56-year-old Chinese man, Wei Nai Kui, to death for trafficking about 80,000 tablets of synthetic drugs weighing 7.3 kg of drugs and about 12.3 grams of methamphetamine.

Kui hid the drugs in a handbag when he was traveling on a motorbike in Trang Bang District on July 7. Kui confessed to police that another Chinese man, named Ming, had hired him to carry the drugs from Cambodia to Vietnam and then to China.