Vietnam Makes Its Biggest Drug Bust
HANOI — Police arrested two foreigners and seized 34 pounds of heroin in Vietnam’s biggest drug bust, an official report said Friday.
The pair were arrested by Interior Ministry police Jan. 18 at their hotel in Hanoi, the state-run Vietnam News reported.
Their nationality was not immediately known.
The heroin seizure was the largest ever in Vietnam, the news said.
Conservatives point to increasing drug use and addiction in calling for the Communist government to go more slowly in adopting free-market reforms and opening Vietnamese society to foreign influences.
Hanoi is spending $4.5 million over an unspecified 12-month period to stop the heroin trade and eradicate poppies grown to make the drug, the Vietnam Investment Review has reported.
Most of Vietnam’s poppies are grown in the mountainous north.
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