Nine suspected members of a drug ring have been sentenced to death in Vietnam. They were found guilty on Monday of smuggling around 105 kilograms of drugs, mainly methamphetamine and heroin, from Laos to their homeland in 2021, as the newspaper “VNExpress” reported, citing the judiciary. The convicts around their 56-year-old leader are between 39 and 59 years old.
The ring was busted by police shortly after its founding. In images circulated in the media, the defendants were seen wearing blue convict uniforms during the sentencing hearing in the Nghe An provincial court, south of the capital Hanoi.
Vietnam’s drug laws are among the strictest in the world. Anyone convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine faces the death penalty. Hundreds of convicts are said to be on death row. It is not known how frequently executions are carried out. “Official statistics on the use of the death penalty in Vietnam are considered a state secret,” writes Amnesty International.
