Tan Son Nhat Airport security yesterday handed a Vietnamese-Australian woman over to Ho Chi Minh City Police after finding her carrying 1.3 kg of heroin when about to leave Vietnam for Australia.
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| These bags of heroine were found hidden in the suitcase of Nguyen Thi Minh Loan last Saturday - Photo: Tuoi Tre |
The drugs were packed in five plastic bags that were stuck on the inside walls of the suitcase.
These bags were covered by additional plastic wrappings containing chili powder, to prevent detection by police dogs.
Loan would have left Vietnam on flight VN773 to Sydney that night.
Since the past month, airport customs have discovered six drug trafficking cases, seizing over 20 kg heroin. Of these cases, three were related to flights to Australia.
On April 24 airport customs arrested a Vietnamese woman boarding a flight from HCM City to with 1.83 kg of heroin in her possession.
The heroin was found packed in seven nylon bags, covered with pepper and coffee and hidden in the lining of her suitcase.
The 32-year-old woman was from Binh Thanh District of HCM City.
On April 21 airport police detained a Cambodian woman for bringing 5.2 kg of methamphetamine, a kind of synthetic drug, from Benin, a West African country, to Vietnam, where she would have taken a road trip to Cambodia.
35-year-old Hom Kosal was caught hiding the white powder in her suitcase when she arrived at the airport on flight QR608 from Qatar, where she transited after departing from Benin.
Kosal told police that she was hired by a man to bring the drugs from Benin with transit in Vietnam, for USD2,000.
Earlier, on April 17, airport customs and police caught a Vietnamese national travelling from the Philippines carrying a double-bottomed suitcase containing 2.6 kg of synthetic drugs.