Winning 400 million VND in lottery, the drug lord borrowed more money to trade crystal meth.

On December 19, 2018, the High People's Court in Hanoi opened an appeal trial of Nguyen Thi Thao (48 years old, residing in Vinh City, Nghe An) for the crime of "Illegal drug trafficking".

According to the indictment, Thao knew a Laotian man named Nhong. Nhong told Thao to find a source to buy crystal meth, and Nhong provided the source of the meth for Thao. Thao said that after winning nearly 400 million VND, Thao pooled her savings and borrowed 40,000 USD from friends to transfer to Nhong to buy 5 kg of crystal meth to resell.

Defendant Nguyen Thi Thao at the appeal hearing. Photo: Quynh An.

On January 6, 2017, Thao gave Trang 3 million VND as travel expenses to receive the drugs, but fearing discovery, Nhong did not deliver the goods as planned. On the evening of January 11, 2017, Thao and Trang hired a taxi to Huong Son (Ha Tinh) to receive the drugs.

Following Thao's instructions, Trang took a taxi to the appointed location and received a backpack containing 5 kg of crystal meth from Nhong's two juniors. At around 8:00 p.m. the same day, when they arrived at Ben Thuy 2 Bridge, they were discovered and arrested by the authorities. The authorities determined that the amount of crystal meth that Thao and Trang participated in buying and selling was 4,980 grams.

The representative of the People's Procuracy of Nghe An province at the trial affirmed that the crimes of the two defendants were extremely serious, and the amount of drugs involved in the trafficking was very large. Therefore, the People's Procuracy proposed that the panel of judges sentence Nguyen Thi Thao to death and Tong Thi Trang to life in prison for the crime of "Illegal trading of narcotics".

Considering the aggravating and mitigating factors, the first instance panel sentenced the two defendants Nguyen Thi Thao and Tong Thi Trang to life in prison.

The appellate panel determined that the sentence imposed by the first instance court was appropriate to the nature and severity of the defendant's crime. Therefore, the appellate panel rejected the defendant's appeal and the protest of the Provincial People's Procuracy to uphold the life sentence for Nguyen Thi Thao.