Vietnam in record nine-tonne cannabis haul: reports
HANOI (AFP) — Vietnam police have busted a drug ring smuggling nearly nine tonnes of cannabis to Canada, a record haul for the country, media reports said on Thursday.
Five suspects with Chinese and Indonesian passports have been arrested over the monster shipment, stored in two containers marked as carrying jeans and headed from Pakistan to Canada via China.
The state-run Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted police sources as placing the 8.8-tonne haul's street value at 90 million dollars.
Vietnam police said they have established a special task force headed by a deputy minister of public security to expand their investigation, the report said. Police refused to comment on the case to AFP.
With its porous borders and long coastline, communist Vietnam has become a major transit country for drugs flowing from the nearby Golden Triangle to Western markets, experts said.
