In late April last year, customs officials at Tan Son Nhat International Airport found 144,000 blank cartridges stored in 60 cardboard boxes amongst the cargo on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul.

It has taken the Ho Chi Minh City administration one and a half years to decide on what to do with them.

The airline, whose flight arrived in Ho Chi Minh City from Istanbul via a connecting flight in Bangkok, said the cargo had been sent to the wrong address.

Turkish Airlines immediately asked Tan Son Nhat customs to allow it to re-export the cartridges, but the agency instead booked the case, seized the items and transferred them to Ho Chi Minh City’s High Command as per regulation.

It was not until Monday this week that the municipal administration officially decided to confiscate those blank cartridges, Do Thanh Quang, head of the airport’s customs agency, announced.

The items will be sold for revenue to the city’s coffers, and Turkish Airlines will be fined VND30 million (US$1,339) for illegally transporting them, Quang said.

In late July this year, customs officers at Tan Son Nhat International Airport also discovered a huge volume of arms hidden on a flight from Turkey.

The weapons included 94 military handguns and 472 magazines, and were said to have been wrongly delivered to Ho Chi Minh City instead of Singapore.