Police from the north central province of Thanh Hoa arrested two people for trafficking 60 bricks of heroin weighing nearly 20kg on May 21.

Bricks of heroin

The traffickers include Ha Ba Cho, born in 1993, from the central province of Nghe An, and Hoang Van Xuan, born in 1987, from the northern province of Thai Nguyen.

The police also seized four mobile phones, 2 million VND (87.9 USD) in cash and other relevant objects.

The two traffickers confessed that they took the drugs from a stranger at the Vietnam-Laos border area to sell at home.

Further investigation is underway.

Drug-trafficking at Vietnam’s borders is a major issue that increasingly concerns law enforcement officers.

Nearly 21,471 drug-trafficking cases were reported in 2017, up 14.5 percent from 2016, according to a report on collaboration between agencies including the Police General Department, the General Department of Vietnam Customs, Vietnam Border Guard High Command and Vietnam Coast Guard.

Some 32,950 suspects were detained, a 13.6 percent increase over 2016’s figure.

Statistics from Vietnam Border Guard showed that the amount of synthetic drugs and marijuana seized last year through the border of Vietnam and Laos respectively increased seven times and twice compared with 2016.-VNA