VIETNAM: MALAYSIAN WOMAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR TRANSPORTING DRUGS

September 17, 2020:

A Vietnamese court on 24 August 2020 sentenced a Malaysian woman to death for transporting 3.3 kg of cocaine from Brazil to Vietnam.
Kalaivani G Muniandy was found guilty of “illegal transporting of narcotic substances”, a Vietnamese daily reported.
The woman, aged 40, was nabbed in October 2018 when she landed in Ho Chi Minh city on an Emirates flight from Dubai.
Customs officials at the Tan Son Nhat airport found 3.3kg of cocaine hidden in food boxes in her suitcase.
“Kalaivani said when she worked as a security guard at an airport warehouse in Petaling Yaja, an Indian man gave her the phone number of a man called Prakash, who specialised in labour export and drug trafficking,” according to the VnExpress International report.
She and Prakash, whose nationality was undisclosed, made contact on WhatsApp.
Kalaivani said Prakash had asked her to be a “liaison” for his counterparts in foreign countries and transport goods for him and was paid RM6,000 for each trip, apart from travel and accommodation expenses.
In late September 2018, Prakash booked flights for her from Malaysia to Sao Paulo in Brazil where she was handed a suitcase containing four food boxes.
She was asked to deliver them to a hotel in Vietnam.
But Kalaivani told authorities that she didn’t know the drugs were hidden inside the boxes.