Police in the northern province of Lao Cai on Wednesday detained a forest protection officer who was hired by a relative to transport over 10kg of heroin from another northern province for sale.   

>> Eight get death for dealing 190kg of heroin in Vietnam Lau A Su, 33, was nabbed while carrying 30 bricks of heroin weighing over 10kg from Dien Bien Province to Lao Cai. Su is a forest ranger at the Tam Duong District Forest Protection Office in Lai Chau Province, also in northern Vietnam, Lao Cai police said. He told police officers that his uncle, Sung A Dau, had hired him to bring the drugs from Dien Bien to Lao Cai for a “wage” of VND200 million (roughly US$9,400). Su and Dau agreed to the deal when they met in Dien Bien when the man returned there to visit his relatives. The 33-year-old wore a forest ranger uniform while riding a motorbike in which the heroin was hidden, as he thought that this would help him slip through the police net, investigators said. From Su’s testimony, police captured Dau later the same day, January 21. A further investigation is underway. Earlier on Monday, the People’s Court of the northern province of Hoa Binh handed down death sentences on eight of the 35 members of a drug trafficking ring that was broken up in 2011 after illegally transporting and trading 541 bricks of heroin, or roughly 190kg. The court also sentenced five other ring members to life imprisonment and gave sentences ranging from two to 20 years in jail to the remaining 22 convicts. Under Vietnam’s Penal Code, those who are found guilty of producing or selling 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics are given the death sentence.

Capital punishment is also applied to those who are convicted of smuggling more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine.

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