VIETNAM: HANOI WOMAN GETS DEATH SENTENCE FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING

December 27, 2022:

The People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City has sentenced a woman from Hanoi to death for trafficking 9.9 kilograms of heroin.
Le Kim Loan, 55, received the death penalty during her trial on 26 December 2022 over her conviction for illegally selling drugs.
The case file showed that police in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Binh District caught Loan red-handed storing drugs for sale on Kenh Tan Hoa Street in Tan Phu District at 4:00 pm on March 1.
Officers confiscated a paper bag containing 704.54 grams of heroin from Loan’s motorcycle at that time.A follow-up raid on Loan’s residence in District 11 resulted in the seizure of another 26 bricks of heroin weighing more than 9.15 kilograms.
Loan then admitted to trafficking drugs for VND3 million (US$127) per brick of heroin as per the order by a man she only known as Ut Lai, whom she had got to know while selling street food on Phan Van Hon Street in District 12 the month before.
Ut Lai had another unidentified man deliver 28 bricks of heroin to Loan’s house on February 28.
Police officers arrested the woman when she was delivering two bricks of heroin to a man named Minh at 125 Khuong Viet Street in Tan Phu District on March 1 as per Ut Lai’s instruction.
But Loan’s failure to provide the exact identities of Ut Lai and Minh means no legal ground for further investigation against those two people.
The trial panel considered Loan’s criminal behavior particularly dangerous to society, affecting both public order and drug-related crime prevention.
It is thus necessary to remove the woman from social life permanently.