With the aid of their Lao counterparts, anti-drug police in Vietnam’s central Quang Binh Province have seized two Lao drug traffickers.

>> VN seizes three Laotians with 3.5 kg of heroin On the afternoon of June 21, police in Quang Binh caught two Lao men, both from Laos’s Kham Muon Province, carrying  3 kg of Methamphetamine, a kind of synthetic drug, in a Toyota from Laos to Vietnam through the province’s Cha Lo border gate.  The police estimated the value of the drugs to be in the billions of dong (VND1 billion = US$48,000), adding that they also seized the car from the traffickers. This is the largest-ever drug bust along the Vietnam-Laos border, Quang Binh police said. Local police are coordinating with Lao officials to expand their investigation into the case. A similar case happened in northern Quang Tri Province last week when local police, with the aid of their Lao counterparts, arrested three armed Laotians that were carrying 10 heroin cakes about 3.5 kg from Laos to Vietnam on June 19. Police also seized a K59 gun and nine rounds of ammunition from the traffickers, who all are residents of the Lao province of Savanakhet. In a related news, border guards in Vietnam’s northwestern Dien Bien province and a security unit of Laos’ Phongsaly province raided several houses in a Lao hamlet on May 1, seizing heroin, weapons and assets worth over US$1.2 million. Colonel Le Quang Dan, head of the anti-drug crime department under the provincial Border Guard, said the joint force raided the homes of  three alleged drug traffickers – Tong Dia, Tong Dinh and Chu Mua Ly – in Pa Hoc hamlet, Muong May district.

The joint force seized 34 heroin cakes, 15.3kg of heroin powder, 64.5kg of additives used in heroin processing, five guns, 186 K56 rounds of ammunition, more than 1,000 rounds for sport guns, and 28kg of dynamite.