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Lt. Gen. Pham Van Thegives information on drug offenses at apress conference on the afternoon of 20 December. Photo: Nguyen Quoc.

Synthetic drugs increased compared to 2018

On the afternoon of December 20, Lieutenant General Pham Van Cac, Director of C04, chaired a press conference on the results of drug prevention and combat in 2019.

According to the information given, in 2019 (until November 15), the Public Security forces took the lead and coordinated with relevant forces to detect and handle 23,328 cases with 36,222 drug-offenders.

Exhibits seized include nearly 9 tons and more than 1 million synthetic drugs, including 1,222 kg of heroin; 6,253 kg, more than 1,053 million synthetic drugs; 614 kg of opium and 768 kg of marijuana.

“Notably, the number of synthetic drugs seized increased fivetimes compared to 2018. The year 2019 has witnessedthe seizure of the largest amount of drugs and synthetic drugs up to now,” a representative of C04 said.

According to Lieutenant General Pham Van Cac, one of the causes leading to the increase in seizures is the effectiveness of the functional forces.

In particular, in 2019, C04 was directly assigned by the Ministry of Public Security to coordinate with relevant forces of other countries to fight transnational drug crime lines.

Domestically, the police force continues to strengthen and coordinate effectively with the Customs, Border Guard and Coast Guard forces, so the effectiveness of struggling with drug crime lines is excellent and seized hugequantities ofdrugsand arrest of many conspirators, including foreign leaders.

Did drugs drift in the Central Sea originated from the Golden Triangle?

Answering areporter's question related to the phenomenon of heroin drifting on the coast of three central provinces (Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue, Quang Tri) recently, Lt. Gen. Pham Van Cac said there were incidents. Similarly, about 2 months ago, this occurred on the Brazilian coast.

"After receiving the information, the Department sent two working groups to investigatethe situation and, on December 19, our reconnaissance had initial investigation results," Lt. Gen. Pham Van Cac said, and directed Colonel Mai Son Cuong, Head of Division 7, C04 to get specific information.

According to Col. Mai Son Cuong, from the external identification characteristics of the packaging of heroin, the batches of these drugs show signs of origin from the Golden Triangle area. Plastic cans used to hold drugs are also of foreign origin.

The C04 representative said that drugs could be brought from abroad to Vietnam for transporting or being transported on the sea route to other countries by ship but bad weather might cause ships to sink and drugs drift ashore in central region sea.

"Based on the signs ofthe plastic cans containing drugs, it can be seen that they had to be sunk and drifting at sea for at least two months before reaching the coast of our country," said Colonel Mai Son Cuong.

446 heroin packagesin the case were co-chaired by the Customs force with C04 in early November 2019.

Proposals for tight management of "laughing gas"

At a press conference of Customs Newspaper reporters, the authorities have broken many transnational drug crime lines, arrested many Taiwanese (Chinese) and Chinese people.

Lt. Gen. Pham Van Cac said that the authorities have arrested many people who committed drug offenses including Taiwanese, Chinese, Lao PDR, Thai, South African and these suspectswill be severely punished in accordance with the laws of Vietnam and serving the sentences in Vietnam.

"Any case committing such a crime that the death penalty will be executed," Lieutenant General Pham Van Cac said.

Regarding the second question of the Customs Newspaper reporter on the situation of illegal use oflaughing gas(N2O) among young people today, whether the Ministry of Public Security has considered putting this substance onthe list of narcotics or not.

Colonel Ngo Van Hoa, Head of Division 5 (C04) said N2O gas is legally used in the industry but is being abused by young people, causing social problems, affecting public health and social security.

However, according to current regulations of domestic law and international practice, N2O substances cannot be included in the list of narcotic substances and precursors.

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"After consulting the relevant agencies, the Ministry of Public Security proposed a plan to strictly control N2O gas according to the provisions of the Chemical Law," Colonel Ngo Van Hoa said.