The drugs hidden in toothpastes carried by flight attendants were seized in Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport in March. VNA/VNS Photo

HCM City – HCM City’s police have launched legal proceedings against 65 defendants in relation to the four Vietnam Airlines flight attendants arrested for transporting 11kg of drugs onboard a flight from France to Việt Nam 

The expanded investigation is looking into crimes of illegally trading, transporting and possessing drugs, failing to report crimes and concealing crimes.

Police seized nearly 50kg of total synthetic drugs, two guns and many related exhibits and issued a decision to handle administrative violations of 12 subjects.

This was the result of the expanded investigation into the case of four Vietnam Airlines flight attendants arrested at the Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport for carrying more than 11kg of narcotics from France to Việt Nam.

On March 16, customs officers at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport in HCM City searched the luggage of four Vietnam Airlines flight attendants – Trần Thị Thu Ngân, Võ Tú Quỳnh, Nguyễn Thanh Thuỷ, and Đặng Phương Vân. They discovered 157 toothpaste tubes containing a total of 11.284kg of ketamine and MDMA.

Since then, the HCM City police identified six more shipments containing synthetic drugs, all coming from the same Vietnamese resident in France.

These shipments originated from a Vietnamese resident in France who was using toothpaste tubes and food boxes to smuggle drugs into Việt Nam. Vietnamese people studying and living in France provided express delivery services to transport narcotics to Việt Nam via Nội Bài International Airport.

Once the drugs arrived in Việt Nam, the criminals used domestic express delivery services to send them to a person in Đồng Nai Province, who then distributed them to subjects in HCM City and Bình Dương Province for retail sale in multiple locations.

Tracing and apprehending the subjects in the case was challenging, as they used several sophisticated tricks, such as technology delivery services, to deliver drugs. VNS