HCMC – Investigators of the Ministry of Public Security and the HCMC and Dong Nai police have cracked a transnational drug trafficking ring led by Kim Soon Sik, a former South Korean police officer, aged 60, and seized 19 bars of heroin and 120 kilograms of illicit drugs and arrested 15 drug traffickers.
The Investigation Police Department on Drug-related Crimes under the Ministry of Public Security had teamed up with the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Division under the General Department of Vietnam Customs, HCMC and Dong Nai police and other agencies to break up the ring shipping the illicit drugs from Cambodia to HCMC for consumption and transit, the department told VietnamPlus on August 3.
Over the past two days, the competent forces ceaselessly searched 11 locations, where the illicit drugs were hidden, including nine venues in HCMC and two others in the southern province of Dong Nai.
Of the total 120 kilograms of seized drugs, 75 kilograms were found at a facility in HCMC’s outlying district of Binh Chanh, where two Vietnamese nationals were detained due to their involvement in the massive drug ring.
Among the arrested traffickers, two Chinese nationals and two South Korean traffickers were also arrested at other locations in the city.
On July 19, the investigators urgently examined a 20-foot container— with the goods inside declared as granite stones—weighing some 30 tons at Cat Lai Port while it was ready to be loaded onto a ship heading to Incheon Port in South Korea. The investigators found and seized 40 kilograms of synthetic drugs hidden inside the container.
The ring was uncovered successfully thanks to the close collaboration between the police, the customs authorities and the border guards.
