A seizure of three tonnes of drugs and the survival war

	Detective dogs of customs sniff out drugs
	Smuggling drugs and wild animal products takes place on a large scale
	An Giang border is “hot" with drug crimes

Colonel Vu Van Hau (left) and Colonel Do Ngoc Canh at the talk. Photo: Nguyen Quoc

Record volume

The above information was given by Colonel Vu Van Hau - Deputy Director of Investigation Police Department on Drug-related Crimes - C04 (Ministry of Public Security) in the talk with the topic "The fight against drugs: What to see from the large cases," run by the Government Information Portal on the afternoon of May 8.

According to Colonel Vu Van Hau, the Department destroys more than 20,000 drug-related cases per year with over 30,000 offenders.

"Sometimes, the number of drug-related criminals accounts for 50-60%," said Hau.

Hau said provisions on dealing with drug-related crimes are very strict and competent forces struggle fiercely, however, the number of violations is increasing due to high demand and abundant supply.

Currently, the number of drug addicts managed by the police force amounts to about 250,000, nearly double that of 10 years ago.

In the last months of 2018 and early 2019, competent forces destroyed the largest number of drug cases ever and seized more than three tonnes of drugs and more than 1,000 bricks of heroin.

Regarding the origin of drugs in the large cases, Hau shared that there was sufficient evidence to confirm that drugs were brought from abroad into Vietnam for consumption and for transport to a third country.

“Because Vietnam has convenient transportation with a full range of ports, airways, roads, and railways and is adjacent to many countries. In particular, the country is close to the world's largest drug centres as the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent. We are only about 500 km far from the Golden Triangle. Thereby, Vietnam is considered as a destination place and transit place to a third country,” Colonel Vu Van Hau said.

Before the increasingly complicated situation of drug crimes, the leader of Investigation Police Department on Drug-related Crimes said the fight against drug crimes is a survival war. It requires to synthesise many professional measures; some cases must take several years to be removed.

Colonel Vu Van Hau said currently, illegal transport and trafficking of drugs are very sophisticated with many different methods such as: hiding drugs in gas cylinders, pressing into wooden planks, hiding drugs in goods or inside the body to avoid detection.

Facing the question of whether the number of newly seized drugs is "the floating part of the iceberg", Hau said, "drugs are not floated, only sank". The recent destruction of large drug cases is the fact that the forces severed links in transnational drug lines led by foreign perpetrators connected with perpetrators inside the country.

According to Colonel Hau, Vietnamese forces have been struggling to prevent Vietnam from becoming a transit place of transnational drug lines.

Perpetrators and 17 bricks of heroin seized by the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Department in coordination with competent forces in Son La on April 20. Photo: CTV.

Solution of "preventing the supply and destroying the transport line" of the Border Guard

Emphasising the complexity of domestic and international drug crime situation, Colonel Do Ngoc Canh - Deputy Director of the Department of Drug and Crime Prevention (Border Guard Command) said: According to information from "Preparatory Meeting for the 6th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Drug Matters" in Hanoi on October 2018, in the ‘Golden Triangle’ - the world’s second largest drug production centre, there are about 85,000 hectares for poppy growing. Drug output in 2018 was about 3 billion tablets of synthetic drugs, 250 tonnes of methamphetamine, 500 tonnes of heroin and imported precursors to produce synthetic drugs were 3,000 tonnes. The illegal trade amounts to nearly US$20 billion per year.

Determining the fight against drug crimes as the fight against transnational criminal organisations, so Colonel Do Ngoc Canh shared the motto of the Border Guard force as "Preventing the supply and destroying the transport line, helping others actually helps yourself”.

Accordingly, the Border Guard force has coordinated with authorities in the country and in neighbouring countries to prevent and combat drug crimes.

This stems from the nature of drug crimes that is "closed, regular and continuous". Therefore, the fight against drug crimes is an international fight.

On the other hand, drugs are transported from the Golden Triangle cross Laos to Vietnam. Therefore, with the motto "Preventing the supply and destroying the transport line, helping others actually helps yourself”, it means that preventing drug transport from arriving in Vietnam’s territory.

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Therefore, the Border Guard and Police have coordinated with Lao Police in all fields: professional training, technical support, coordination in special cases so that the anti-drug force of Laos is more and more mature and proactively breaks down many large cases with tonnes of drugs.