A Vietnam court has sentenced a Thai woman and three Vietnamese people to death for transnational transport of more than 56 kilograms of heroin in 2011-2012.
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Pornpirom Upapong, 32, and her three Vietnamese accessories Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang, 51, Le Xuan Phu, 30, and Phan Thi Lien, 45, received their sentences at the trial opened by the Hanoi People’s Court on Thursday.
They were all convicted of “illegally transporting narcotics” under Article 194 of the Penal Code.
According to the indictment, in late 2011, Trang, who was then the owner of a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, agreed to bring drugs from Vietnam to a foreign country and vice versa for Pornpirom, one of Trang’s guests at her hotel.
According to their agreement, the Thai woman would pay Trang VND6-12 million (US$282-564) for each successful delivery of drugs, and if Trang acted as a broker, she would enjoy VND1-2 million ($47-94) as a brokerage fee.
Trang later talked Phu and Lien into the drug trafficking ring led by Pornpirom.
On September 29, 2012, Trang handed four boxes containing 17kg of drugs, packed in a backpack, to Lien, who then took a train to Hanoi and gave the boxes to Phu.
A day later, Phu was arrested while trying to bring the dope to China via the border in northern Quang Ninh Province.
On October 1, 2012, Trang asked Lien to come to a hotel in Hanoi to meet Pornpirom to receive some narcotics and then bring them to HCMC.
Lien was later captured at HCMC’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport after customs officers discovered the drugs stashed in her luggage.
From the testimonies of Phu and Lien, police later detained Trang and then the Thai woman.
In total, the Thai trafficked in 5kg of heroin, while the amounts illegally transported by Trang, Phu and Lien were 25kg, 18kg and 8kg, the court said.
In August last year, another Thai woman was sentenced to death by the HCMC People’s Court for trafficking in 2kg of drugs from Brazil to Vietnam.
Chaimongkol Suracha was arrested on October 1, 2012 at Tan Son Nhat International Airport after customs officers caught her hiding four bags of white powder in two albums packed in her luggage.
She arrived on a flight from Dubai, where she transited after flying from Brazil.
Tests later confirmed that the powder was cocaine, and the smuggled drugs weighed 1.983 kg.
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