After two weeks of trial, the northern Quang Ninh Province People’s Court this morning handed down sentences on 89 defendants involved in five trafficking rings and handed down 30 death sentences. Over 4,400 bricks of heroin and hundreds of thousands of synthetic drug tablets were involved in the case.This is the largest drug trafficking case that has been discovered and tried in Vietnam, considering the number of defendants, the volume of drugs involved, and the number of death sentences announced. This is also the first hearing in the country where the jury handed down a record-high number of death sentences. Besides being charged with illegally transporting and trading in drugs, many of the 89 defendants, including 27 women, were also indicted for counterfeiting materials of agencies and organizations, storing weapons, illegal trading, failing to report crimes, giving bribes, and bribery brokerage. Of the 89 convicted, 30 were given the death penalty, 13 received life sentences, nine got 20-year sentences, 27 got sentences from two to 18 years in jail, and the others received sentences of under 2 years.   The hearing was chaired by judge Nguyen Van Vuong and 41 lawyers defended the accused. The jury also ordered the defendants to hand in the profits they had earned through drugs. The amounts to be submitted by each defendant are different, ranging from VND10 million (US$480) to VND10 billion ($480,000). According to the over-100-page indictment, Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, a 54-year-old woman in the northern Bac Giang Province, had led a ring that trafficked drugs from Laos into Vietnam since late 2006 until April 2012, when she was arrested at Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi. From Ngoc’s testimonies, police later cracked down on four other transnational drug rings, seizing about 4,400 bricks of heroin, 20 cars, dozens of guns, and a lot of fake documents and materials. The first ring was led by Sa Van Cau, 40, of Son La province. Cau is hiding and is being hunted by police. This ring had transported and sold about 1,000 bricks of heroin, 10 kg of methamphetamine and 120,000 synthetic drug tablets. The second ring was headed by Nguyen Hung Dung, 35, and Song A Lau, 37, of Son La. The ring trafficked 3,400 bricks of heroin, 260,000 ecstasy tablets and over 16 kg of methamphetamine. The third ring was run by Nguyen Thi Hoan and Nguyen Ngoc Doan. This ring transported hundreds of bricks of heroin from Vietnam to China for sale. The last ring was operated by Nguyen Thanh Tuan and his wife Vu Thanh Hien, both 32, of Hanoi.   The police are hunting for 28 other defendants involved in the rings, the court said.