Ho Chi Minh City (VNA) – The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on August 17 opened the first-instance trial of 227 defendants in a drug trafficking case expanded from the March 2023 case involving four female flight attendants who were unwittingly used to transport drugs through Tan Son Nhat International Airport.
Given the large number of defendants, the trial is conducted through a combination of in-person and online proceedings, at the court’s headquarters and connected to Chi Hoa temporary detention centre.
The trial is scheduled to run until September 12. More than 120 lawyers have been appointed to defend the defendants and protect protect their legitimate rights and interests, while 18 individuals with related rights and obligations have also been summoned to court.
According to the indictment, the 227 defendants face charges under eight categories, including illegal transportation, trading, organisation of illegal drug use and possession of narcotics; use of forged documents issued by organisations or agencies; failure to report crimes; concealment of crimes; and illegal appropriation of property. Four defendants who are on the run and subject to arrest warrants are being tried in absentia in accordance with the law.
The case originated on March 16, 2023, when Tan Son Nhat International Airport Customs detected suspicious packages in the luggage of four flight attendants - Tran Thi Thu Ngan, Dang Phuong Van, Vo Tu Quynh and Nguyen Thanh Thuy - who had arrived in Vietnam on flight VN10 from France. A subsequent inspection found 327 tubes of toothpaste of various brands, including 157 tubes containing a total of more than 11kg of drugs.
The case was subsequently transferred to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Public Security’s Investigation Police Agency, which launched a criminal investigation and established the VN10 special case to expand the probe.
Investigators determined that, in addition to the shipment seized at Tan Son Nhat airport, Ha Danh Nam, also known as “Huu Son”, had successfully organised the transportation of six other shipments containing synthetic drugs from France to Vietnam. The drugs were concealed in toothpaste tubes and boxes of dietary supplements and transported by air.
Nam allegedly recruited Vietnamese people studying or residing in France to collect goods and use international express delivery services to send drugs to Vietnam.
The expanded investigation uncovered multiple networks involved in receiving, transporting, trading and possessing drugs, as well as organising illegal drug use, resulting in 227 defendants being prosecuted.
Among them are singer Nguyen Trung Hieu, known as Chi Dan, and Spanish national Andrea Aybar Carmona, also known as An Tay, a model and actress. Both face charges of organising illegal drug use and illegal possession of narcotics.
Regarding the four flight attendants, the indictment said they had agreed to transport 60kg of goods from France to Vietnam for Nam for a fee of 6.5 EUR (7.5 USD) per kilogramme. However, investigators found no evidence that they knew the packages contained drugs or that they knew, communicated with or conducted financial transactions with Nam, or other members of the drug trafficking networks.
As there was insufficient evidence to establish their knowledge of or involvement in drug trafficking, the four flight attendants were not prosecuted and were subsequently released.
The VN10 case has been identified as an especially serious, large-scale drug trafficking case involving multiple networks and localities, with offenders allegedly employing sophisticated methods, clearly assigned roles, cyberspace and electronic transaction tools./.
Border guards seize 15,200 drug pills, heroin in major trafficking bust
At about 10:15 pm on July 20, officers from the Operations Division of the Nghe An Border Guard Command and the Nam Can International Border Gate Border Guard Station, in coordination with customs officers at the Nam Can International Border Gate, caught a resident of Tan Tien hamlet, Chieu Luu commune, Nghe An province, allegedly transporting narcotics in Tien Tieu hamlet, Nam Can commune.
