Vietnam’s highest prosecutor, the People’s Supreme Procuracy, has pressed charges against five foreigners and a Vietnamese national for trafficking in heroin.

 

According to the indictment, in 2006, Nnaji David Ete, a 32-year-old Nigerian, conspired with four of his fellow-country men and a Zimbabwean to move drugs from Thailand to China via Ho Chi Minh City.

 

They were hired by an unidentified person known as "Chukwudi" and were paid US$2,000 for each transport.

 

Pham Thi Thanh Le, who married Ete in 2006 and had two children with him, also participated in the activities.

 

Ete later expanded his ring to include Nigerians living in countries like China, India, Brazil and Malaysia.

 

Police busted up the operation in Vietnam in June, 2009.

 

Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. Those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin are eligable for the death sentence.

 

Last month.a Nigerian man in HCMC was sentenced to death for smuggling heroin from India to Cambodia via Vietnam.

His girlfriend, a Vietnamese national, was sentenced to life in prison due to the fact that she was pregnant with his child.