'Beauty' sentenced to death for illegal drug trafficking

Hired for 10 million VND to receive a package of drugs at the post office, Thoa did not expect to face the death penalty.

Bo Thi Kim Thoa (27 years old, residing in Hong Tien commune, Khoai Chau district, Hung Yen) has no stable job. After getting married and having children, Thoa and her husband divorced. Instead of looking for a decent job, she wanted to get rich illegally by illegally transporting drugs. When her crime was discovered, Thoa fled but was later arrested under a wanted notice.

Thoa’s accomplice in this case is Vu Ngoc Hoang (24 years old, residing in Hien Nam ward, Hung Yen city, Hung Yen province). On December 12, the Hanoi People’s Court opened the first-instance criminal trial of this case.

According to the indictment of the Hanoi People's Procuracy, Thoa was known as a hot girl of Hung Yen province. After getting married and being financially stable, but because of incompatible life views, Thoa and her husband broke up.

From then on, Thoa started to associate with gangsters, including Duong Huu Tung, who was wanted by the police for his involvement in a case. Tung was found guilty of concealing a criminal and fled Vietnam.

In early March 2017, Thoa received a phone call from Tung from Hong Kong (China). During the conversation, Tung asked Thoa to accept a package containing drugs sent from abroad. In return, Thoa would receive a large sum of money. From this phone call, Thoa agreed and sent Tung her ID number.

On the morning of March 22, 2017, Thoa received 10 million VND from a strange young man at her house. After that, Thoa received a phone call from abroad with a notice to prepare to go to a post office in Cau Giay district to sign for the package.

Defendant Thoa (standing) and defendant Hoang at the trial.

At the same time, Hoang also received a phone call from Tung informing him to coordinate with Thoa to go to Hanoi to receive the drugs. The next afternoon, Hoang drove from Hung Yen to Hanoi to carry out the plan as arranged. To avoid detection by the authorities, at the Cau Giay District post office, Hoang was instructed by Tung to go in first to listen and then let Thoa go in to sign for the package.

After Thoa signed for the parcel and brought it to the car driven by Hoang, she was caught red-handed by the police. Taking advantage of the authorities' negligence, Thoa fled from Hanoi to Hung Yen, calling her husband (who was divorced) for help, claiming that she was in hiding from gambling debts.

Thinking it was real, Thoa's husband quickly drove to the meeting place to pick Thoa up. Sitting in the car, Thoa told her husband to take her to find a temporary hiding place to avoid debt collection. Thinking what Thoa said was true, the husband took his ex-wife to his relatives' house in Hai Phong City to hide from the debt.

In Hai Phong, Thoa again used the trick of “hiding debt” to ask for money from her husband’s acquaintances and returned to Tu Ky district (Hai Duong) to hide. On April 7, 2017, while Thoa was planning where to continue her escape, she was discovered by the police and arrested under a wanted warrant.

At the trial, Thoa was evasive and did not admit to the above crimes. Explaining his escape, Thoa stated that at the time the police checked the parcel, he did not know it contained drugs. However, when the jury asked him to explain the content of the text messages and phone calls related to Tung and Hoang before his arrest, Thoa had no way to deny it.

For his part, at the trial, defendant Hoang confessed that before going with Thoa to receive the goods, they both knew that the goods were drugs. According to Hoang's testimony, he was assigned to take Thoa to the meeting point to transport the drugs, while Thoa was responsible for finding a sales outlet.

After deliberation, the panel of judges determined that, based on the documents in the case file and the public interrogation process, there was sufficient basis to confirm that the two defendants Thoa and Hoang had illegally transported more than 7,405 grams of drugs.

With this verdict, the People's Court sentenced defendant Thoa and defendant Hoang to death for the crime of illegally transporting drugs (Article 194 of the Penal Code).

According to CAND