Nguyen Thi Hai Anh, Michael Ikenna Nduanya, Agu Kingsley, Vuong Dara in police custody.

The Ministry of Public Security said Wednesday that police had arrested three people, including two Nigerian men, for transnational drug trafficking in Ho Chi Minh City this week.

The police confiscated nearly one kilogram of heroin in the bust.

Anh said she was moving the drugs from HCMC to Hanoi for her husband, Michael Ikenna Nduanya, who was apprehended the next day together with Agu Kingsley at an apartment block in District 7, according to the police.

The two Nigerian men told the police another Nigerian man named Chika had hired them from India to transport heroin from Cambodia to China through Vietnam for US$2,000 a shipment.

Colonel Le Thanh Liem, deputy head of C17, said they had kept a close watch on Anh for months, as she was suspected of being closely involved in another India-HCMC drug smuggling ring busted in July.

C17 had arrested six people, including five Nigerian men, in that case. They seized nearly two kilograms of heroin in the southern city. Anh had allegedly hired women to transport the drugs hidden in sandals and handbags, police said.

In a separate case, C17’s southern office joined hands with police in the southern province of Binh Phuoc and border guards to arrest Vuong Dara, a Cambodian man, as he brought 1,000 synthetic drugs pills into Vietnam from Cambodia.

According to police, the 39-yearold man was a former border sergeant in Cambodia that had joined a trafficking ring.

Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin is punishable by death.

Reported by Bao Thien