A Thai woman and a Nigerian man were sentenced to death for transporting drugs into Vietnam Tuesday.
Chaimongkol Suracha, 31, was convicted of “illegally transporting narcotics” by the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City, according to a statement from the Public Security Ministry. Chaimongkol was arrested at the city’s airport last October, allegedly carrying nearly two kilograms of cocaine in her luggage on a flight from Brazil. She claimed to not know photos albums she was transporting for someone were filled with cocaine.
Vietnam’s drug laws are among the toughest in the world. According to its penal code, anyone convicted of trafficking, illegally producing or transporting 100 grams or more of heroin or cocaine can be sentenced to death.
Chaimongkol told the court that she had been asked by some African people in Brazil to bring two photo albums to the owner of a car trading company in Vietnam where she was looking for a job, not realizing the albums contained the cocaine, according to state media reports.
On Monday the court also handed a death sentence to a 31-year-old Nigerian man, who was found guilty of bringing 3.48 kilograms of methamphetamine into Vietnam on a flight from Qatar in June of last year. State media cited the court’s indictment as saying that Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu had hidden the methamphetamine in 16 metal cylinders and in a laptop charger, the Wall Street Journal reported.
CORRECTION: a previous version of this story listed heroin as the drug smuggled into Vietnam. The drug was cocaine.
