Five passengers arriving in Hanoi from Bangkok on Friday were held by airport customs and police officers for hiding 18kg of metal believed to be gold inside their bodies.
All of the detainees
On August 25, customs officers and local police stopped and arrested five people transporting 18 kilogram of metals suspected of being gold in Hanoi.
The five passengers are Vietnamese, arrived at Noi Bai International Airport from the flight TG564 departing in Bangkok at around 7:45 pm.
Even though the suspects had wrapped the metal around their bodies, mostly in their thighs and calves, and covered them with layers of clothes, they still failed to escape the well-trained eyes of the seasoned officers and the scanner.
Officers are testing the metal to see if it is gold.
In July 2016, three Vietnamese were also arrested for smuggling 3.1kg of 24k gold, worth VND2.8 billion (US$123,000), from Vietnam to South Korea.
One of them was a mechanic working at Noi Bai, and the other the others were a female flight attendant working for Vietnam Airlines and her husband.
In Vietnam, gold is sold in bullion, measuring in tael. (one tael = 37.5 grams)
With Vietnam’s gold price reaching VND35.277 million ($1,550) a tael on Saturday, a kilogram of gold is worth some VND952 million ($42,000).
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