Police of northern Quang Ninh province on March 31 announced on the crackdown of a drug trafficking ring using foreign-registered car to transport heroin in Vietnam.

Phan Tha Vong (middle) is detained by police

On March 29, traffic police found a suspected car registered in Laos crossing Ha Long City on National Highway 18, a spokesperson of the province’s police force said. 

They stopped the car for search and discovered Phung Trung Dung from Quynh Phuc district, Thai Binh and Phan Tha Vong, a Lao national from Vientiane, Laos with 100 bricks of heroin hidden in three secret compartments inside the car.

Body search of Dung also found some small bags allegedly containing synthetic drug pills. The pair confessed that they were on the way to the border area to sell the drug.

The police said they are expanding the investigation further on the case.

The case was broken just two days after three men were arrested for smuggling 135 bricks of heroin and 500,000 synthetic drug pills in the northern mountainous province of Dien Bien. It was the largest quantity of synthetic drug pills seized in the country so far. Two out of three are residing in Dien Bien province while the other is a foreigner.

Drug-trafficking remains a major issue in Vietnam, especially at border areas, like Quang Ninh, which shares border with China, and Dien Bien, bordered by China to the northwest and Laos to the west.

Nearly 21,471 drug-trafficking cases were reported in Vietnam last year, up 14.5 percent from 2016, according to a report on collaboration among 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.-VNA