Minister of State for Policing, Crime and Security David Hanson (right) and Tran Dai Quang, Vietnamese Vice Minister for Public Security in a photo taken on Sept. 30

Vietnam and the UK are working to implement an agreement signed in August 2008 to bring back nearly 600 Vietnamese prisoners who are currently in British jails, a senior UK official said Thursday.

Hanson, who had earlier in the day met with Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang, said both sides also agreed on improving information sharing between their police forces to make it easier to track criminal activities originating in the UK, Europe and spreading to Vietnam or other parts of Southeast Asia and vice versa.

The UK official noted that there has been a “sudden” increase in crimes related with drug trading and the growing of cannabis committed by Vietnamese migrating to the UK illegally.

However, he emphasized that most of the Vietnamese prisoners in the UK are low-level members of drug-trading groups operating in the UK and bringing them back home to serve their sentences is the right thing to do.

In addition, there has also been a number of Vietnamese being lured to the UK illegally and forced into criminal activities including prostitution, Hanson said.

He added that the UK spends about $60,000 annually on housing one prisoner.

Reported by Huong Le