VIETNAM: FOUR SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING

August 1, 2019:

A HCMC court on 29 July 2019 sentenced a Vietnamese Australian drug ring leader and three of her accomplices to death.
Lam Kim Phung, 55, was arrested in 2016 and identified as the leader of a gang that trafficked heroin and methamphetamine from Cambodia into Ho Chi Minh City.
She was charged with "illegal trading of narcotic substances." Three of her henchmen, Le Quang Cuong, Nguyen Duy Thach Thao and Tran Quynh Linh, also got death sentences.
Three other defendants were given life sentences, and four others, including Phung’s brother, also a Vietnamese Australian citizen, were given imprisonment terms of three years and six months to 20 years.
According to the indictment, Phung returned to Vietnam from Australia in 2005 and opened restaurants and casinos in Cambodia. After suffering losses with her business, she came up with idea of trafficking drugs.