The Vietnamese judiciary has handed down the death penalty to nine people in a drug trafficking case involving the border with Laos, state media reported on Monday.
The court in Nghe An (center) sentenced the gang's leader, Tran Thi Mau, 56, and her eight accomplices to the death penalty and two others to life imprisonment after a three-day trial, VNExpress said.
According to the official news site, the group paid locals to transport banned drugs from Laos through the jungle and at night to evade police.
According to this source, between the end of 2021 and their arrest in May 2022, they managed to smuggle 105 kilos of methamphetamine, heroin and synthetic drugs.
According to Amnesty International, Vietnam imposed the death penalty on at least 119 people in 2021, one of the highest numbers in the world, pointing to the secrecy imposed by the communist regime over the number of executions.
Very strict regulations also apply to the question of narcotics in the Socialist Republic.
Last November, 18 people, including two South Koreans and a Chinese man, were sentenced to death for drug trafficking.