Vietnamese police have arrested two Taiwanese in connection with 1,100kg of narcotics seized in Ho Chi Minh City, news Web site Vnexpress reported yesterday.
Yeh Ching-wei and Chiang Wei-chih were arrested after police checked three vehicles unloading goods with their engines running on Friday last week, it said.
Two of the vehicles fled the scene, but were later intercepted, it said.
About 606kg of narcotics in 600 packages resembling tea bags stuffed inside 60 large loudspeakers were discovered in the vehicles, it said.
Police expanded the investigation, and arrested a Vietnamese man and seized 50kg of narcotics inside five loudspeakers and another batch, weighing 452kg, in 38 loudspeakers in Ho Chi Minh City, it said.
The three batches were shipped from Thailand, the report said.
It quoted police as saying that this was Yeh’s first time in Vietnam, while Chiang had visited Vietnam three times since last year, arriving at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City.
The two Taiwanese were abetted by a Chinese national, it said.
Separately, Vietnamese authorities on Monday arrested four people and seized more than 700kg of drugs in 600 packets and inside 50 loudspeakers in Nghe An Province, English-language daily newspaper VietNam News reported.
The four suspects were led by a Taiwanese man, the report said, adding that the drugs were transported from Laos into Vietnam on a truck.
The police are expanding their investigation to determine whether the two cases are related and to track the illicit flow of drugs, Vnexpress reported.
The Southeast Asian nation has become a key hub for narcotics around the Golden Triangle, the world’s second-largest drug producing region, where China, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar share borders, VietNam News reported.
Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, it said.
Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600g of heroin or more than 2.5kg of methamphetamine face the death penalty in Vietnam, it said.
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