Vietnamese man caught shipping heroin to Australia

When Ho Chi Minh City customs officers searched a “suspicious” shipment of goods en-route to Australia on April 22 they found around a kilogram of heroin hidden in eight boxes of face masks sent by an address in Phu Thinh Commune, Vinh Long Province, which neighbors Long An in the Mekong Delta.

Police eventually determined the sender to be a Long An resident named Ho Quoc Viet.

Investigators suspected Viet might try to evade arrest via crossing the border into Cambodia, so they requested the help of border guards to apprehend him.

On Monday, border guards learned that Viet was staying at a karaoke parlor near a border gate in Cambodia. The police station at the border gate then worked with Cambodian authorities to detain Viet and transport him back to Vietnam.

Upon his arrest in Vietnam, Viet confessed that he used a fake name to send the drugs to Australia.

Police then also found 41.27 grams of meth inside his car parked near the border, authorities said.