Female businesswoman hides over 6kg of gold in milk cartons.

Having agreed to sell over 6kg of gold to a partner in Cambodia, the female businesswoman bought the gold, commissioned the crafting of nearly 2,000 pieces of jewelry, and then disguised them in milk cartons to smuggle them out of the country.

On April 21, the Appellate Court of the Supreme People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City opened the appeal hearing for the case of large-scale gold smuggling committed by defendant Luu Tai Thai (48 years old, Ho Chi Minh City).

Defendant Thải (in the blue shirt) on the vehicle returning to prison.

According to the initial verdict, Thải was a businesswoman who frequently traveled to Cambodia for trade. Around March 2013, Thải was approached by traders in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) to order and purchase gold jewelry from Vietnam, and Thải agreed.

To produce gold jewelry for customers according to their orders, Thải contracted several domestic companies to process a total of 170 taels of 18k gold into 1,860 pieces of jewelry such as necklaces, rings, bracelets, etc., for resale and profit.

On the morning of March 15, 2013, after receiving all the jewelry, Thải hid it in a milk carton and then went to Trường Chinh Street, Tân Phú District, Ho Chi Minh City, to catch a bus on the Ho Chi Minh City - Phnom Penh route to Cambodia to deliver the goods to a customer.

At approximately 9:00 AM that same day, upon arriving at the Moc Bai international border gate, Thai concealed the box of gold in the back seat of the bus before proceeding with exit procedures, failing to declare the gold he was carrying. When customs officers at the border gate inspected the vehicle, they discovered and confiscated the gold, weighing over 6 kg and valued at over 4 billion VND.

For the aforementioned offense, the Tay Ninh Provincial People's Court sentenced Luu Tai Thai to 13 years in prison for "smuggling" at the first-instance trial. Following the trial, the defendant Thai appealed for a reduced sentence.

At the appellate trial, after consideration, the panel of judges found the defendant Thải's criminal act to be very serious and requiring strict punishment. However, considering that the first-instance court had committed procedural violations during the trial that the appellate court could not rectify, it was necessary to overturn the judgment.

Consequently, the appellate court overturned the entire verdict and ordered the lower court to reinvestigate and retry the case from the beginning.

According to vietnamnet