VIENTIANE: A municipal court in Vietnam sentenced four Lao nationals to life in prison and one to 20 years on April 20 after convicting them of smuggling more than 143 kilogrammes of narcotics into Vietnam, according to Vietnamese media.
The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City found Thongchaleun Youkhanthone, 27, Sivongphet Saiykham, Sisoulath Vidavone, and Sivongxay Sok guilty of illegal drug transport.
In the same court case, a Lao woman, Keobounmanh Heng, received a 20-year prison sentence. The details of her hearing were not released.
Vietnamese media reported that another woman, reportedly a Vietnamese national known only as Nat, recruited the four men, instructing them to pose as tourists and drive a car loaded with narcotics across the border.
The group entered Vietnam through the Lao Bao border gate in central Vietnam, which connects Savannakhet Province to Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province, before collecting nine handbags and two sacks of drugs in Da Nang on the orders of a Vietnamese handler.
The group then drove south to Ho Chi Minh City, delivering most of the consignment to contacts in Hoc Mon District on the city’s northwestern outskirts. Police intercepted them the following morning in Quang Ngai Province as they headed back toward the border.
Seized drugs included ketamine, methamphetamine, and heroin, recovered from both the car and a rented house used as the ring’s distribution hub.
Vietnamese nationals Nguyen Lap Son and Nguyen Duc Thinh, who ran that hub, were sentenced to death for illegal drug trading. Son’s wife, Phan Thi Bich Tram, received 20 years, while driver Vo Ba Thinh was handed a life sentence.
Authorities identified Lam Thien Hiep, a Vietnamese national, as the alleged mastermind who recruited Son in October 2023 and coordinated operations remotely via social media application Telegram. Hiep remains at large, and his case has been separated pending arrest.
Both Thinh and Heng disputed knowing the shipment contained drugs, but the court ruled the evidence sufficient to convict. - Laotian Times
