The gang first appeared on their radar on March 16 last year, when customs officers at HCMC’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport noticed tubes of toothpaste with unusual signs in hand luggage of the four agents arriving from France.
Police found eight kilograms of ecstasy and three kilograms of cocaine and ketamine hidden inside.
The attendants admitted to transporting the tubes for 10 million dong (US$407) and claimed they were unaware of the drugs they contained.
They told police they had agreed to transport the 60 kilos of toothpaste tubes for a person in France who had contacted them through a colleague.
Speaking at a workshop on combating air drug trafficking in Hanoi on Friday, Major General Mai Hoang, deputy director of the municipal police, said the biggest question The next question was whether these attendants “were aware of the drugs they contained”.
After analyzing their backgrounds, police concluded that they often took advantage of their carry-on luggage to transport goods to Vietnam for money.
“Putting humanity first and adhering to the principle of not punishing the innocent, we decided to release the four flight attendants despite strong pressure.”
But HCMC police created a special task force to continue the investigation.
On the first day, it arrested 36 suspects and tracked down several ringleaders in Yen Thanh district in the central Nghe An province.
They were identified as smuggling six shipments of drugs from abroad to Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi, then transporting them to HCMC and elsewhere for distribution.
The seventh shipment, and the first transiting through HCMC, was transported by the four flight attendants.
After 10 months of investigation, HCMC police dismantled 150 trafficking networks linked to this group in different provinces.
They opened investigations into 381 individuals and seized 130 kg of drugs.
Some 3,000 bank accounts were involved in transactions worth 22 trillion dong ($896 million), they said.
Hoang said: “This is the largest drug trafficking ring in our country’s history. We anticipate there will be approximately 500 defendants in this case.”
This success is due to close cooperation between customs and police, he said.
The four flight attendants “greatly helped” police, he said, praising them for their “honesty and professionalism.”
