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The Vietnam News

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Vietnam police arrest Britons for heroin smuggling

HANOI - Vietnamese police have arrested two British citizens of Vietnamese descent for trafficking more than 100 kg (220 lbs) of heroin from Laos to Hong Kong and China via Vietnam, state media reported on Wednesday. The police-run An Ninh Thu Do newspaper quoted investigators as saying they had charged Le Manh Luong, 45, and his 46-year-old sister-in-law, Tran Thi Hien, with drug smuggling, a crime which carries the death penalty.

Luong's girlfriend, who also holds a British passport, managed to evade capture and is on the run, the report said. Four Vietnamese accomplices have also been arrested. The gang is accused of buying 116 kg of heroin from Vietnamese drug dealers in Laos and then reselling it in Hong Kong and China. Trafficking in more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable by death by firing squad.

In June, a court sentenced 46-year-old Mai Cong Thanh, who is Australian-Vietnamese, to death for attempting to send heroin to Australia inside loudspeakers. In April, the Ho Chi Minh City court sentenced to death another Australian man of Vietnamese descent for trafficking heroin. It was not known if either man has yet been executed.

Reuters - November 02, 2005.