Cambodia-Vietnam drug and gun ring suspects indicted

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court received indictments for 15 people accused of involvement in a trans-Vietnam-Cambodian drug and gun trafficking ring this week.

City police began arresting suspects in the case in July, 2007, rounding up the last of the 15 in August last year. The city People’s Procuracy, the municipal prosecutors’ office, prepared the indictments. The gang had moved dozens of 350- gram heroin blocks and thousands of crystal methamphetamine, or ICE, tablets through the Cambodian border to Ho Chi Minh City since 2005, according to investigators. Court documents also allege the group had moved the contraband to the neighboring coastal city of Vung Tau as well. In 1994, former prison guard Nguyen Tan Duy helped Le Hoang Hoi escape from Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province’s Xuyen Moc Prison, where Duy had previously worked, according to police reports. The two fled to Cambodia and began dealing in drugs there, said police. They opened a café in Phnom Penh where they received heroin from Nguyen Van Binh, according to the indictment. They then sold the contraband to Le Thi Anh Dao, a tobacco smuggler with experience breaching the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Nga, a dancer in Phnom Penh, said the indictment. Nga resold her goods to several drug dealers in Vietnam, including Tran Dinh Tam, Tran Minh Quang and Truong Quoc Thang, all of whom she is also accused of supplying K59 handguns to, said investigators. In September 2006, Tam asked Nga for a handgun and she introduced him to a man named Bay Viet, another of Nga’s drug suppliers, who sold him a pistol for US$600. Viet is wanted by police but has yet to be apprehended. In October, Nga helped Quang buy a pistol and eight bullets from Hoi. Quang lent the gun to his friend Vu Manh Hung to repay a debt, but Hung was then caught with the gun by police. In 2007, Thang asked Nga to help him get a similar gun. Nga then sold Thang a gun she had bought from Hoi for $600. Hoi had bought the gun from Duy for $320. Duy had bought the gun at a Cambodian market for $300. Police have seized Thang’s pistol, but not Tam’s. The trial’s start date has yet to be released. Reported by Le Nga