Death sentence for Luu Van Tuong, 44,from Binh Phuoc province

Luu Van Tuong, 44, was caught red handed on September 13, 2008 by the Tay Ninh provincial police while carrying more than 3.4kg of heroin from Cambodia to Vietnam via the Trans-Asia Highway. Police found 10 packages of solid substance kept inside a carton which was later identified as heroin. Tuong confessed that a Cambodian national named Bon had hired him to transport the carton to Vietnam at a cost of VND50 million. He also said that he had received VND32 million from Bon’s wife to successfully carry a box of heroin to Vietnam in August 2008. In the court room, the jury rejected Tuong’s petitions, upheld the first instance court’s ruling and fined him an additional VND30 million.

Trang Bich Hong,Lam Mong Chinh arrested for heroin smuggling in Vietnam

Vietnam arrested three Australian women after authorities found heroin in the hotel room of two of them and in a packet hidden on the body of the third as she tried to board a plane home, state-controlled media reported Friday (13 June).Early Thursday (12 June), police arrested Trang Bich Hong, 28, and Lam Mong Chinh, 25, after finding heroin in their hotel room, Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper said.
Late Wednesday (11 June) they detained a woman, who was unidentified, at the airport in southern Ho Chi Minh City after authorities found 250 grams (0.5 pound) of heroin hidden in one of her body cavities.The newspaper said the three, all of Vietnamese origin, were being monitored by Australian police for several months for their suspected role in trafficking heroin from Vietnam.Police were not available for comment Friday and officials at the Australian Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City would not comment.
Last week, police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested another Australian woman of Vietnamese origin after she collapsed with heroin in her stomach.
Vietnam has some of the world's harshest drug laws. Possession of 600 grams (1.32 pounds) of heroin or more is punishable by death.
About a dozen Vietnamese-Australians have been brought to court in Vietnam for heroin trafficking in recent years.
At least four have had their death sentences commuted because of lobbying by the Australian government, which banned the death penalty in 1973. Vietnam has not executed any Australians for drug offenses. (AP)

Allegedly smuggling unauthorized drugs into VietnamHuynh Kim Hoang,Du My Hanh,Tran Van Hiep ,Nguyen Thi Hong Thoa

Five former executives from the Ho Chi Minh City Import-Export Corp. (Yteco) will appear before the HCMC People’s Court today for allegedly smuggling unauthorized drugs into Vietnam. Former Yteco director Huynh Kim Hoang, his ex-deputy Du My Hanh, the company’s former administrative department manager Lam Ngoc Kiet, and his deputy Tran Van Hiep and Nguyen Thi Hong Thoa, who headed the pharmaceutical group, are accused of forging documents to allow the company to import more than their official quota of various medicines.According to court documents, the accused changed Ministry of Health documents to import VND380 million (US$24,000) worth of drugs and vaccines.
Hoang and Hanh are also alleged to have ordered subordinates to illegally import seven types of vaccines worth more than VND8 billion ($500,000) in 2004.

Australian Vietnamese woman Jasmine Luong sentenced to death

An appeal court in Vietnam has sentenced an Vietnamese-Australian woman to death for heroin trafficking after prosecutors appealed against her original life sentence, a court clerk said Wednesday.Jasmine Luong, 34, was handed the death penalty on Tuesday by the court in Ho Chi Minh City, he said on condition of anonymity.
Luong, who was born in Vietnam, was arrested at Tan Son Nhat airport outside Ho Chi Minh City in February last year as she preparing to fly to Sydney with nearly 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) of heroin, according to a police source.
"She had been hired to transport those heroin packs, hidden in her luggage and shoes," the source said.Several Australians of Vietnamese origin have been arrested over the past few years for trafficking heroin from Ho Chi Minh City to Australia. Of those, some were given life imprisonment or the death penalty.However, foreigners are rarely executed in the communist state, usually after intense diplomatic pressure from Western governments.Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those caught with more than 600 grams of heroin or 20 kilograms of opium face the death penalty.At least 104 people were sentenced to death in Vietnam last year, and 12 since the beginning of the year, according to figures compiled by AFP from state media and Vietnamese officials.
Vietnamese court of appeals has handed down death sentence to an Australian Vietnamese woman for drug smuggling, instead of life imprisonment one passed by the court of first instance, local newspaper Saigon Liberation reported Wednesday. The Supreme People's Court in southern Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday gave the penalty to the 34-year-old man named Luong Jasmine, who was hired to transport heroin from Vietnam to Australia to tune of 16,000 U.S. dollars. Jasmine was arrested in February in 2007 when completing procedures for her departure to Australia at the International TanSon Nhat Airport in the city. Under Vietnam's laws, anyone possessing, trading or trafficking heroin of 600 grams or above can be sentenced to death or life in prison. facing the firing squad in Vietnam says she became a drug mule to pay off her husband's gambling debts.Jasmine Luong, 34, from Sydney, was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City's airport in February last year with 1.5kg of heroin in her baggage and shoes. Fairfax newspapers say Luong claimed that an unidentified man offered her $US15,000 ($16,458) to take the drugs to Sydney. In December she was sentenced to life imprisonment, but on her appeal this week the sentence was upgraded to the death penalty. It is believed Luong has claimed she was deserted by her husband and was left with little choice when approached about becoming a drug mule, Fairfax reported.

Vietnam has sentenced eight heroin traffickers to death

Vietnam has sentenced eight heroin traffickers to death, a court official said Friday, raising to more than 40 the number of drug smugglers to receive the death penalty over the past month.In the latest mass trial, the Hanoi people's court also jailed 29 others, 18 of them for life, for trafficking heroin across the country's mountainous north over two years.The report said traffickers had become more sophisticated and dangerous, with some ready to attack police with firearms and grenades.

Son La , Hoa Binh provinces eight people sentenced to Death

Vietnamese court sentenced eight people to death for smuggling heroin, raising to 35 the number of people put on death row within two weeks for trafficking the drug.
A court clerk says a 10 day Hanoi trial found 26 drug smugglers guilty of trafficking or selling a total of more 50 kgs of heroin.
Eight defendants received life terms, and the others were jailed for between 15 and 20 years. The 35 year old female ringleader was among those sentenced to death by firing squad for trafficking more than 36 kgs of heroin between 1998 and February 2006.
The gang had brought the heroin from the northern mountainous Son La, Hoa Binh provinces, near the Lao border, to sell to users

Trinh Nguyen Thuy

Trinh Nguyen Thuy and 32 of his associates on charges of trafficking and producing heroin, according to papers there.
According to the police investigation, the gang was responsible for bringing in about 200kg of heroin and almost 700 kg of opium from Laos to Vietnam between 2001 and 2003.
Thuy has also admitted to bribing officials so that he could be allowed to grow opium poppies on farms close to Hanoi city.
these actions would make Thuy’s gang one of the largest in Vietnam, a country that has very strict laws against the drug trade with the death penalty often enforced.

Nguyen Van Huy, aged 36, and his 39-year-old wife, Hoang Le Thuy

Nguyen Van Huy, aged 36, and his 39-year-old wife, Hoang Le Thuy, had 500 grams of heroin hidden away in bottles of medication in their baggage, as they attempted to fly from Ho Chi Minh City back to their hometown of Melbourne. Their three daughters, aged between two and 10, were travelling with them and have been handed over to relatives. They face possible decades away from their parents.

A SYDNEY man was sentenced to death in Vietnam

A SYDNEY man was sentenced to death in Vietnam yesterday for trying to smuggle almost a kilogram of heroin to Sydney in his underwear, as two other Australians prepared to face trial in Hanoi tomorrow on unrelated heroin trafficking charges.

The convicted man, 40-year-old Tony Manh, will be supported in his expected appeal for clemency by the Australian Government, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said last night.

"Recently, the fact that many Australians of Vietnamese descent are involved in trafficking heroin from Vietnam to Australia has become a phenomenon," said Phan Tanh of the People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City.

Manh was caught with the drugs on March 3 at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City as he prepared to board a flight to Sydney. He told the court he was paid $US10,000 to transport the drugs out of the country.