A Vietnam court has given a death sentence to a Filipino man for carrying over 3.4kg of cocaine from Brazil into Vietnam in late 2013. Forty-year-old Emmanuel Sillo Camacho received the sentence at his trial opened by the Hanoi People’s Court on Tuesday on charges of “illegally transporting drugs” pursuant to Article 194 of the Penal Code. Camacho was arrested in early December 2013 after being caught with cocaine hidden in his luggage at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi. Security forces discovered white powder with total weight exceeding 3,408 grams stashed inside eighteen socks.

Camacho told investigators that four months before the arrest, he had met a woman named Jessica who was living in Brazil through Facebook. On November 25, 2013, Camacho arrived in Brazil to meet Jessica, who then hired the man to smuggle drugs into Vietnam. The woman also promised that she would give Camacho a job in Brazil or other countries with wages from US$1,000 to $1,500 per month. Camacho agreed to transport drugs for the woman, and later received six plastic bags containing the said 18 socks that were packed with cocaine. On December 7, 2013, the Filipino flew from Brazil to Singapore and then to Vietnam, where the drugs were detected. The court said Camacho overlooked the Vietnamese law for a quick profit and deserved the capital punishment, given the large amount of cocaine he had illegally transported into Vietnam. Several death sentences have been given to foreigners on drug charges in the Southeast Asian country in the past several years. On April 4, 2014, the appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City upheld the death sentence for Chaimongkol Suracha, a 32-year-old Thai woman, for trafficking 2kg of drugs from Brazil to Vietnam in 2012. On August 19, 2013, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court condemned a 31-year-old Nigerian man, Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu, to death for smuggling more than 3.4kg of synthetic drugs from Qatar to Vietnam in June 2012.

Under Article 194 of the Vietnamese Penal Code, twenty years of imprisonment, life imprisonment or capital punishment can be given to those who are found guilty of illegally stockpiling, transporting, trading in or appropriating heroin or cocaine weighing one hundred grams or more. The same penalties are also given to those who commit the crimes in one of the following circumstances: opium resin, marijuana resin or coca plasma weighing five kilograms or more; marijuana leaves, flowers, fruit or coca leaves weighing 75 kilograms or more; dried poppy fruit weighing 600 kilograms or more; fresh poppy fruit weighing 150 kilograms or more; other narcotic substances in solid form weighing 300 grams or more or in liquid form measuring 750 milliliters or more.Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!