POLICE CRACKDOWN NETS 5,500 SUSPECTED DRUG TRAFFICKERS

HA NOI -- Over 3,800 drug cases were brought to trial in Viet Nam in
the first five months of this year during what officials call the
biggest crackdown on drug smuggling and trafficking in recent years.

The police's aggressive zero tolerance policy resulted in the arrest
of 5,500 suspects and the confiscation of 300kg of heroin and opium
along with 20,000 ecstasy pills.

Police have said that they are increasingly targeting drug runners
that utilise remote border crossings to smuggle contraband into the
country. A ring that was disbanded in late May exemplified this
approach. The group, police said, was working with criminal
syndicates from overseas to transport heroin into the southwestern
border province of Long An from the Golden Triangle via Cambodia.

On June 18, units from the northern border province of Quang Ninh
broke up a trans-regional group that plied its trade in Laos and
China. Ringleader, Can Viet Phuong, and his 34 accomplices were
caught in possession of 1.7 kg of heroin, eight guns, explosives and
illegally gained properties worth in excess of VND1 billion.

Another northern syndicate that controlled a vast mountainous region
for supply and a network that stretched from Ha Noi to HCM City saw
42 of its members prosecuted and over 24 kg of heroin confiscated.

However, narcotics squads in HCM City have warned that drug
syndicates are becoming increasingly sophisticated as they look for
new means of delivery by air, sea and post along routes that involve
Australia and Taiwan.

A Vietnamese Australian, Nguyen Tuan Khanh, and 35 others were
recently arrested with 2,765 ecstasy tabs in part of a round up that
lasted six months and netted 1,511 suspects in 511 separate cases.

Most of the major cases involved growing links with criminals from
abroad, highlighting the increasingly complicated situation in Viet
Nam and the region as a whole, police said.

In a clear message to drug dealers operating in the country a court
from the northern mountainous province of Son La on June 14 handed
out death sentences to seven defendants who were members of a
trans-national drug-trafficking gang led by Trinh Nguyen Thuy. -- VNS