FW: Vietnam Busts Biggest Drug Smuggling Ring

[Hai-Tri Le <haitril@microsoft.com>]

> Vietnam Busts Biggest Drug Smuggling Ring -Report 
>  Aug 24, 1999 
> HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam police have uncovered the communist-ruled
> country's 
> biggest drug trafficking ring and detained 120 people, including police
> and 
> government officials, official media reported Tuesday. 
> 
> Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said police had confiscated around $442,000, as
> well 
> as 339.5 taels (12.7 kg or 28 lb) of gold and 11 houses. 
> 
> ``According to sources from the police ministry, the anti-drug squad is 
> continuing to discover the biggest ever national drug trafficking ring,''
> the 
> paper said. 
> 
> It added that one of those detained had confessed to trafficking 272.3 kg
> (600 
> lb) of heroin and 1,000 kg of opium. 
> 
> The paper listed no names and specified no time-scale for the operation of
> the 
> ring. 
> 
> ``The case began when a man was detained after being found with two cakes
> of 
> heroin hidden in the school case of an eight-year-old boy,'' the paper
> said. 
> 
> It added that initial investigations should be completed by the end of 
> September and that the first 30 people would be prosecuted soon after. 
> 
> Vietnam, which frequently frets about soaring drug use and trafficking in
> the 
> country, last year sentenced 49 people to death and arrested 18,000 others
> for 
> drug-related crimes, official media has reported. 
> 
> In early 1998, a 35-man firing squad executed seven men who had been
> identified 
> as kingpins in the then largest drug case, which saw convictions for a
> number 
> of senior police, border guards and customs officials. 
>