16 December 2024 :
A Vietnamese-Canadian man, along with three accomplices, was sentenced to death on December 16, 2024 for trafficking over 100 kg of drugs into Vietnam.
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Court handed down the death penalty to Chu Ba Chung, 40, Truong Ngoc Mai, and Tran Kim Loan for "illegal trading of narcotics."
Another accomplice, Nguyen Vu Khai Hoang, received the same sentence for "illegal transportation of narcotics."
Two other accomplices, who were linked to Chung and Mai, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The court determined that evidence and testimonies conclusively demonstrated the defendants' involvement in large-scale drug trafficking and transportation operations for financial gain. Despite some mitigating factors, the court deemed the severity of their crimes to warrant strict punishment.
Chung, born in Vietnam, moved to Canada with his family at the age of nine. In early 2019, he returned to Vietnam, living in various locations, including a rented apartment in Nha Trang.
He was allegedly hired by an individual named Trai to store and deliver drugs to buyers in HCMC, earning commissions of $100–200 per kilogram sold. He later recruited Mai to assist in receiving, storing, and delivering the narcotics.
Since early 2020, Chung had been receiving shipments of 5–30 kg of methamphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy, and other drugs from Trai’s network in Cambodia.
These drugs were transported to HCMC and stored at Mai’s residence.
On Sept. 15, 2022, Hoang collected a suitcase containing over 40 kg of drugs from a man at a border area in the Central Highlands. He then delivered the drugs to Mai and Chung in HCMC.
The following day, Chung instructed Mai to distribute nearly 12 kg of drugs, which she packed into three cartons for delivery in District 5. Mai was arrested on Sept. 16, 2022, during a coordinated police raid.
Subsequent searches of the residences involved in the operation uncovered over 100 kg of drugs. Prosecutors held Chung and Mai criminally responsible for the entire volume of narcotics.
Several individuals linked to the case, including Trai, remain unidentified, and authorities have yet to take further action against them.
