Police in central Vietnam have seized more than half a tonne of methamphetamine in one of the largest drug busts in recent years in the communist country where synthetic drug use is on the rise.
Four people were arrested after police stormed a house in central Nghe An Province, where they found 600kg of meth, some of it stuffed in speaker boxes.
The meth shipment was “about to be loaded onto trucks ... for delivery,” said a report from Cong An Nhan Dan, the official mouthpiece of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, after the bust on Monday.
Dozens of police swarmed a house where the drugs were being stored, occupied by an elderly couple believed to be related to one of the dealers, state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper said.
Police said they were investigating the source of the meth and where it was to be shipped to.
The bust follows a weekend seizure of 30kg of drugs in southern An Giang Province, including about 18kg of meth that was stored in packages for tea and vitamin supplements.
Synthetic narcotics manufactured in the lawless “Golden Triangle” region straddling Myanmar, Laos and Thailand often find their way into Vietnam, though homegrown labs have also been reported in recent years.
The one-party state is both a hub for drug use and also a popular thoroughfare for shipments of illicit narcotics.
Opium and heroin are the drugs of choice among older users, but youngsters are increasingly turning to party drugs ,such as ecstasy, meth and ketamine, which have flooded the market.
Last year, seven young people died of suspected overdoses at an electronic music festival in Hanoi.
Vietnam boasts some of the world’s toughest drug laws, and anyone caught with more than 600g of heroin or more than 2.5kg of methamphetamine can face the death penalty.
Monday’s bust comes after two massive seizures last month in Ho Chi Minh City — one a 300kg haul of heroin, another a 300kg haul of meth — both involving Chinese nationals who were taken into custody.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS