The appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday upheld the death sentence for Chaimongkol Suracha, a 32-year-old Thai woman, for trafficking 2 kg of drug from Brazil to Vietnam in 2012.

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Suracha was sentenced to death on charges of “illegally transporting drugs” by the HCMC People’s Court in the first-instance trial on August 20, 2013. She later appealed for a lighter sentence. At yesterday’s appeal hearing, the Supreme People's Court rejected Suracha’s appeal, saying there are no grounds to give her any commutation. The woman was arrested on October 1, 2012 at Tan Son Nhat International Airport after customs officers caught her hiding four bags of white powder in two albums packed in her luggage.

She arrived on a flight from Dubai, where she transited after flying from Brazil.

Tests later confirmed that the powder was cocaine, and the smuggled drugs weighed 1.983 kg. At her first instance trial, Suracha told the court that she befriended an African man named Fosta in 2012, and the man introduced her to a person known as Mieara, who promised to find Suracha a job at a car exporting company.

On August 12, 2012, Mieara took Suracha to Vietnam after telling her that she would be introduced to the boss of the company. The two  and they later flew from Vietnam to Brazil, where the company was apparently located.

Mieara later gave Suracha $1,000 to cover her expenses. During Suracha’s stay in Brazil, Suracha met some other people, who later bought a ticket for Suracha to fly back to Vietnam, and told her that she would meet the company’s boss again later.  One of these people gave Suracha two albums and asked her to bring them to Vietnam.

Suracha told the court that she had not known there was cocaine hidden in the two albums, but the jury rejected her statement, concluding that she had “illegally transported drugs.”