A 31-year-old Thai woman was sentenced to death Tuesday, April 8th, after a Ho Chi Minh City court found her guilty of smuggling nearly two kilograms of cocaine from Brazil to Vietnam last October.
This is the second death sentence
that the HCMC People's Court has handed down to a foreigner in as many
days.
Chaimongkol Suracha, 31, told the
court that she got to know an African man called Fosta online. Fosta
had introduced her to a man named Mieara who he said would help
her land a job, news websites VnExpress reported Tuesday.
On August 12, 2012, Mieara took
Chaimongkol to Vietnam
to meet the manager of an automobile export company, but then said the company
had a job vacancy in Brazil,
so they took a flight to the South American nation that night.
When they arrived in Brazil, Mieara
gave Chaimongkol US$1,000 for expenses and left.
Chaimongkol said she was
watched by another African man, and later she was taken shopping to buy a
suitcase and two albums by two other Africans.
They then asked her
to return to Vietnam
to meet the manager of the car company and get the job Mieara had earlier
promised.
Chaimongkol was arrested
October 1, 2012 at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport
when she arrived from Brazil,
after customs officers discovered cocaine in the two photo albums. The flight
had transited through Dubai.
Chaimongkol told investigators
and the judge that she did not know that the albums contained drugs.
But investigators
dismissed her claims, saying evidence showed that she had willingly
been a mule for a transnational drug trafficking ring for
profit, the Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper reported. The report did not elaborate on the
evidence presented by investigators.
The VnExpress report, meanwhile, said the panel of
judges said the fact that Vietnamese customs officials had found the drug
in her luggage, that she had moved from Thailand to several countries, spent
Mieara's money, and stayed with the African people, combined with
other evidence, was sufficient to pronounce her guilty.
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