Drug mule vomits bag of heroin
2007-05-07 09:51
Hanoi - A passenger on an Australian-bound plane vomited a nylon bag of white powder suspected to be heroin, causing the plane to return to Vietnam in the latest drug mule case between that country and Australia, officials
said on Monday.
The Vietnam Airlines plane had been flying for an hour after leaving Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday when an Australian man of Vietnamese descent took ill, airline officials told the state-run Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.
The aircraft turned around and made an emergency landing
at Tan Son Nhat Airport, where the man coughed up two more bags
of white powder. He was detained by police and taken to
hospital.
Another newspaper, Lao Dong (Labour), reported doctors
found 30 red nylon bags in the man's stomach. It identified him
as 35-year-old Nguyen Kant.
The aircraft took off again for the flight to Sydney in the
early hours of Sunday morning, officials said.
In March, a man was arrested at the Ho Chi Minh City
airport while checking in for a flight to Sydney. He was
accused of trafficking 1.1kg of heroin.
At the same airport in February, an Australian woman was
arrested after being caught with 1.5kg of heroin in her
luggage.
Several Australians of Vietnamese descent have been
arrested for trafficking heroin to Australia from Vietnam in
recent years and at least four were sentenced to death.