HÀ NỘI — The People’s Court in the capital city of Hà Nội yesterday gave seven death penalties and several prison sentences to an 18-member inter-provincial drug trafficking ring after a trial lasting three days.

The seven death sentences went to Nguyễn Tiến Dũng, 46, Nguyễn Ngọc Dương, 24, Phạm Xuân Phương, 23, Nông Văn Độ, 35, Phạm Thị Nghĩa, 49, Trần Anh Quân, 29, and Hà Sỹ Duy, 28. 

Two members of the ring, Nguyễn Lê, 28, and Nguyễn Thị Tú Lệ, 43, received life imprisonment.

Another nine members, Nguyễn Ngọc Phương, Mai Thị Nga, Ngô Thị Mai Phương, Phạm Thu Hiền, Huỳnh Tấn Nhất, Bùi Trọng Nghĩa, Nguyễn Thị Thu Lan, Đỗ Văn Tuấn, Lê Văn Thủy were sentenced to between 7 and 20 years in prison for illegally trading drugs.

According to the indictment, investigation on the case started in April 2014 after the police of Hà Nội’s Thanh Xuân District arrested Ngô Thị Mai Phương, Nguyễn Tuấn Cường and Nguyễn Thị Tú Lệ on Long Biên District’s Nguyễn Sơn Street for illegally trading drugs. The police confiscated six nylon packs containing white powder and a further 10 packs containing 1,900 pink pills. All tested positive for methamphetamine and weighed more than 180.5 grams in total.

Two months later, police from Long Biên District, together with drug police under the Ministry of Public Security, arrested Phạm Xuân Phương and Trần Anh Quân on Ba Đình District’s Hoàng Diệu Street when the two were caught carrying a nylon pack containing white powder and 208 apple-shaped pills. These were also found to be methamphetamine and weighed nearly 1.2 kilos.

Investigation showed that Nguyễn Tiến Dũng got acquainted with Nguyễn Ngọc Dương and Phạm Xuân Phương in April of 2014, and together with others named, formed a drug trafficking ring trading a high volume of drugs across different cities and provinces such as Hà Nội, Lạng Sơn, Sơn La, Bắc Ninh, Hải Phòng, Hưng Yên, Phú Thọ, HCM City and Đà Nẵng.

Nguyễn Tiến Dũng was the one who provided money and instructions as well as operated the trading. Dũng assigned Nguyễn Ngọc Dương to keep records, manage money and drugs, as well as liaise with dealers. Phạm Xuân Phương was assigned to receive the drugs from Dương, distribute to dealers and collect money in return.

Of those sentenced to death, Dũng, Dương, and Phương were found to have illegally traded more than six kilos of methamphetamine, and 39,200 ecstasy pills of different types. Others were also found to have illegally traded a high volume of drugs, including Nông Văn Độ with five kilos of methamphetamine, Phạm Thị Nghĩa with 41,000 ecstasy pills, Trần Anh Quân with six kilos of methamphetamine, 2,800 ecstasy pills and Hà Sỹ Duy with 1.38 kilos of methamphetamine and 20,600 ecstasy pills. — VNS