Buying drugs on credit, getting extra guns and bullets

On the morning of August 27, the People's Court of Nghe An province opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Va Pa Co (born 1968), residing in Nhot Kho village, Bac Ly commune, Ky Son district, for the crimes of "Illegal trading of narcotics" and "Illegal possession of military weapons".

According to the investigation agency's documents, around the beginning of February 2019, Va Pa Co went to her farm and met an ethnic man named Lau Ba Xi (Lao) who asked her "do you want to buy drugs?". She replied "I want to buy but I don't have money". Xi immediately said "I will let you borrow, when you sell all the drugs, pay me back". She agreed.

Then, Xi gave Co a bag of drugs containing 350 carefully wrapped pink pills and 6 taels of heroin. Xi told Co to sell them for 30,000 VND/1 pink pill and 1.6 million VND/1 tael of heroin.

Defendant and Pa Co at the first instance trial.

At the same time, Xi left Va Pa Co a homemade gun, a duckbill grenade, 3 bullets, and a small scale for safekeeping. She kept the drugs and weapons under her bed in her shack.

At 6:00 p.m. on March 10, 2019, two men (names and addresses unknown) came to Ms. Co's farm to buy two ecstasy pills for 100,000 VND. While Ms. Co was selling drugs to customers, she was discovered and caught red-handed by the police.

Being suddenly surrounded and arrested, she fiercely fought back with a gun, injuring one detective in the face. The evidence seized in the case was 29.4 grams of methamphetamine and 24.33 grams of heroin, as well as the military weapons she used.

In court, the defendant admitted to all the crimes as charged in the indictment. She said she had been addicted to drugs for many years. The defendant admitted that she knew that drug trafficking was against the law, but because of greed, she took the risk.

The jury determined that the defendant’s actions were dangerous to society, because of his greed he recklessly traded drugs, causing white death to many families. The fact that this was his first offense and that he confessed honestly were mitigating circumstances in the case.

Considering the case as a whole, the panel sentenced Va Pa Co to 16 years in prison for “Illegal drug trafficking” and 1 year in prison for “Illegal possession of military weapons”. The total sentence for defendant Co is 17 years in prison.