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LATEST NEWS
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Vietnam heroin charges for Victorian woman
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June 07, 2008 12:00am
A VICTORIAN woman has been arrested in southern Vietnam after she collapsed with heroin in her stomach, state media reported.
Tran Thi Ngoc Dung, 35, was leaving her hotel in Ho Chi Minh City on her way to a flight home on Sunday when she fell unconscious and was rushed to hospital, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said.
Doctors found she had two condoms full of heroin in her stomach and one of them had burst, the paper said.
Ms Dung was still in the hospital but had been put under arrest.
It was unclear how much heroin she was carrying.
Vietnam has some of the world's harshest drug laws.
Possession of 600g or more of heroin is punishable by death.
About a dozen Vietnamese-Australians have been in court in Vietnam for heroin trafficking in recent years.
At least four have had their death sentences commuted because of lobbying by the Australian Government.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday: "The Australian Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City is seeking to confirm media reports that the woman will be arrested on drug charges."
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Viet-Aust woman busted for attempted heroin smuggling
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A Vietnamese-Australian woman was arrested in the Asian communist country after collapsing when a heroin-packed condom burst inside her stomach, state media reported.
Tran Thi Ngoc Dung, 35, was en route from her Ho Chi Minh City hotel to the airport to fly to Australia on Monday when she fell unconscious and was hospitalised, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) daily reported, quoting police.
She was arrested and put under police guard in her hospital bed after doctors recovered two five centimetre-long packages of the illegal drug wrapped in condoms, the report said.
Vietnam, like most Asian countries, imposes harsh penalties for drug smugglers. People caught with over 600 grams of heroin or 20 kilograms of opium, its raw material, usually face the firing squad.
Heroin is the most common illegal drug in Vietnam and a leading cause of the spread of HIV/AIDS through the sharing of syringes used to inject the drug.
Vietnam's proximity to the 'Golden Triangle' countries of Burma and Laos - the second and third largest opium producers - and its porous borders and long coastline have made it a major illegal drug transit country, say experts.
Earlier this week border guards in Vietnam's central Ha Tinh province arrested three men who were trafficking 32,000 ecstasy tabs as well as amounts of heroin and marijuana from Laos, the Nhan Dan daily reported.
Australia is a major heroin destination, and several Vietnamese-Australians have been caught trafficking the drug to the country in recent years. None of them are known to have been executed as Canberra has lobbied for clemency.
- AFP
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Australian drug mule 'stopped breathing'
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An Australian woman is under police guard in a Vietnam hospital after a bag of heroin she was allegedly trying to smuggle broke inside her body.
The woman had been about to return to Australia when she fell ill and was rushed in critical condition to hospital on Wednesday, a hospital official in Ho Chi Minh City said.
The 35-year-old had stopped breathing at one point, but her condition had improved to stable today, said Nguyen Van Xuyen, the director of Saigon General Hospital.
"We found two small plastic bags containing heroin in her anus and one of the bags had broken," Xuyen said.
"This is the first case in which we have found heroin in a person's anus. We have treated people having swallowed heroin before."
Xuyen said the woman came to Vietnam to visit relatives and was about to return to Australia when she was taken to hospital.
"She was in critical condition when she arrived at the hospital, and she would have died if she had been admitted a few minutes later," Xuyen said.
"She woke up yesterday and told us about the heroin."
Police were guarding the woman at the hospital and would formally arrest her once she was released, Xuyen said.
The city's anti-narcotics police did not respond to requests for comment.
Trafficking or transporting 600 grams or more of heroin is punishable by death in Vietnam.
In March, an appeals court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced an Australian woman of Vietnamese origin to death for trafficking heroin.
Jasmine Luong, 34, was arrested at the city's Tan Son Nhat Airport in February last year with 1.4kg of heroin hidden in her luggage and shoes.
Several Vietnamese-Australians have been sentenced to death in recent years for drug crimes, but so far none has been executed and several have had their sentences commuted to life in prison.
Vietnam this year sentenced at least 22 people to death, including nine for drug crimes.
DPA
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