Ho Chi Minh City customs officials have seized 9.86 kilograms of Pseudoephedrine, a drug precursor, mixed with shrimp paste in two plastic jars, the latest in a string of cases in which drugs or drug precursors were camouflaged to be sent to receivers in Australia.
>> Vietnam seizes 1kg of drug precursors disguised as tea > Vietnam customs officials detect 1.5kg of drug precursors camouflaged as spicy salt >> Over 4 kg of heroin disguised as medicated oil seized >> Drug precursor found hidden in shampoo, hair dye
Officers at the HCMC Express Delivery Customs Sub-Department found the two jars, declared as shrimp paste, suspicious when they were examining them on May 28.
Customs officers then decided to temporarily seize the jars and sent two samples of the reddish brown paste contained in them to the HCMC Police Criminal Technique Department for testing.
The test results later showed the two samples are Pseudoephedrine, the sub-department said, adding that the value of the drug precursor is over VND7 billion (US$331,000).
The consignor of the two jars of “shrimp paste” is a person residing in HCMC’s District 6 and the consignee is an individual in Australia, customs officers said.
The sub-department has discovered many similar cases over the past several months and all of the consignees in these cases are in Australia.
The most recent case occurred on April 17, when the agency’s staff discovered more than one kilogram of Pseudoephedrine disguised in two boxes as dissolved tea.
The consignor is an individual residing in Thoi Binh District, southern Ca Mau Province while the consignee lives in Australia.
On April 1, the same agency seized more than one kilogram of the same drug precursor stashed in a box of ‘salt, chili and lemongrass’ weighing 1.5 kilograms.
The box was packed along with a bag of prawn crackers and a packet of dried shrimp into a package that weighed 3.7 kg.
The package was declared as a gift sent by a person in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho to a recipient in Sydney, Australia.
On February 12, this agency found over 4 kg of heroin was secreted in 40 tubes of ‘medicated oil’ en route to the same country.
The total weight of the drugs was 4.22 kg, valued at about VND15 billion (US$709,000).
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Đăng ký: VietNam News
