At the trial for drug trafficking, in Ho Chi Minh City, December 24, 2024. – / AFP Twenty-seven people were sentenced to death by a Vietnamese court for trafficking more than 600 kilograms of narcotics, including heroin, ketamine and methamphetamine, official media reported on Friday, December 27. The gang, made up of thirty-five people, smuggled 626 kilograms of drugs into Vietnam from Cambodia between March 2018 and November 2022, according to the Tuoi Tre newspaper. Investigators estimated that the total amount of funds involved in the network was approximately $54.8 million (€52.5 million). The eight members who were not sentenced to death received prison terms ranging from twenty years to life imprisonment, after a four-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City. The court described the case of cross-border drug trafficking, carried out over a long period, as particularly serious. To ensure the discretion of their operations, the network used the messaging application Signal and telephone numbers from the United States or Cambodia to communicate about drug shipments. The indictment revealed that starting in early 2020, the gang’s leader, Oanh Ha, transferred up to $20,000 per trip to traffickers who transported the merchandise hidden in cars or engine blocks. A total of 129 engine blocks were successfully smuggled from Cambodia to Vietnam. No information was given on the date of the executions. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers “Against drug trafficking, an intransigent narrative often turns out to have no lasting results on the ground” Read later Le Monde with AFP Reuse this content
Author : News7
Publish date : 2024-12-28 10:09:37
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