Less than a year out of prison, the man who had committed five crimes and fled the forest with drugs closed the door to return home.
For Luong Duc Nguyen, prison is no longer a strange place as he has been there many times. Sometimes he was in prison for theft, sometimes he got involved in drugs. Although he had many opportunities to start his life over, Nguyen refused. The 6th time he returned to his old path forced him to close the path to reform.
Stop stealing and get into drugs
One morning at the end of July, the trial of defendant Luong Duc Nguyen (born in 1972), residing in Thai Nguyen province for the crime of “Illegal transportation of narcotics” was held. In the large auditorium, there was no sign of relatives attending. Perhaps, they were too frustrated with what Nguyen had caused for a long time when he was continuously in and out of prison.
In his twenties, Luong Duc Nguyen was involved in property theft. At first, he was only given a warning by the authorities, but later, he reoffended with more serious consequences and was sentenced to prison by the Court. In 1991 and 1994, Nguyen received a suspended sentence of 15 months and a 12-month prison sentence for property theft.
Not long after being released from prison, Nguyen returned to his old ways. He refused to work and instead stole property from many people. After being administratively punished twice, he was sent to a rehabilitation facility. Despite his family's advice, nearly a year after leaving the rehabilitation facility, Nguyen got involved in a new, more dangerous crime: drugs.
In 2000, Nguyen was sentenced to 15 years in prison for organizing illegal drug use. Addicted, shortly after his release from prison, this man was sentenced to another 36 months in prison for illegal drug possession.
Not only did drugs cost Nguyen his freedom, but they also caused his family to leave him one by one. After he went to jail again for drugs, his wife decided to divorce him. Their child was raised by his mother.
In mid-2023, Nguyen finished serving his prison sentence. After a short reintegration into the community, the man with 5 previous convictions decided to go to Nghe An to start a career as a gold miner. But that was just an excuse for him to turn to drugs and return to his old ways.
The excuse of the unrepentant
Around the beginning of May 2024, Luong Duc Nguyen went to Que Phong district (old) of Nghe An province to pan for gold. Here, the man who had been imprisoned three times for drug-related crimes met a man named Luc (Mong ethnic, identity unknown).
On May 30, 2024, Luc proposed to hire Nguyen to transport 6 heroin cakes and 6,000 pink pills to Thai Nguyen bus station for a fee of up to 100 million VND. However, the lessee set a condition that the money would be paid only after the successful transport. Nguyen agreed to the above proposal.
Early the next morning, Luc urged Nguyen to carry out the mission. Following the instructions of the hirer, Nguyen went into the mountainous area to receive many packages of drugs and put them in a backpack. After that, he took a taxi to a densely populated area, rented a room, and waited for a bus to take him to the North.
At 10:00 a.m. on May 31, when Nguyen was carrying a backpack containing drugs to the bus station, he was arrested by Nghe An police. The evidence of the case was more than 2.6 kg of drugs. With the above crime, Luong Duc Nguyen was prosecuted and brought to trial for the crime of Illegally transporting drugs.
In front of the witness stand, the defendant confessed to his crime and expressed remorse. The defendant said that after being released from prison, he did not have a stable job, so when someone introduced him to Nghe An to pan for gold, he packed his bags and left. However, when the jury questioned him about why he had met drug dealers after only being in Nghe An for about a month and agreed to transport drugs for them, Nguyen remained silent.
The defendant admitted that his crime was motivated by personal gain. However, in this case, he had not yet received any money. “The defendant knows that his actions were wrong. I ask the court to consider giving him a chance to live to take care of his elderly mother and start his life over,” Nguyen stated.
After a few minutes of contemplation, the defendant confided about his turbulent life. Nguyen Bao, when he was young, had little education, and was not sure of his path, so he soon fell into a downward spiral. At first, he only stole things of little value, but later he became more and more addicted to the “two-finger” habit. When he became addicted to drugs, his free life became even darker. The defendant admitted that because of his addiction, he defied the law and reoffended many times. “During the time he was detained, he was forced to undergo drug rehabilitation, so now his health is more stable,” the defendant told the court, expressing his remorse.
After the trial, the panel of judges determined that the defendant had full criminal capacity and had committed the crime of Illegal transportation of narcotics with the aggravating circumstance of recidivism. The defendant's actions were dangerous to society, not only directly violating the State's management and use of addictive substances, violating the provisions of the Law on Drug Prevention and Control, negatively affecting local security and order, and being one of the causes of social evils and other crimes.
The defendant was aware that the act of illegally transporting drugs was a violation of the law, but still intentionally committed the act. Therefore, the court sentenced Luong Duc Nguyen to life in prison for the crime of illegally transporting drugs.
The sentence for the defendant is also a wake-up call for those who are teetering on the edge of reformation and recidivism. Drugs not only destroy the body and personality but are also the shortest path to push people into prison, robbing them of their future, burying their youth behind bars, and almost closing the door on their future./.
