Twenty-seven people were sentenced to death by a Vietnamese court for trafficking more than 600 kilos of drugs, including heroin, ketamine and methamphetamine, official media reported Friday.
The gang of 35 people smuggled 626 kilos of drugs from Cambodia to Vietnam between March 2018 and November 2022, according to the “Tuoi Tre” newspaper.
Investigators estimated that the total amount of funds involved in the ring was approximately $54.8 million.
The eight members who were not sentenced to death received prison terms ranging from 20 years to life imprisonment, after a four-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City.
The court described the case as particularly serious cross-border drug trafficking, carried out over a long period of time.
To ensure the discretion of their operations, the network used the Signal messaging app and phone 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. Vietnam has some of the strictest drug laws in the world.
