Five suspects were arrested on 12 May 2008 after police found hashish packed in small bags inside two shipping containers at Mong Cai, on the Chinese border.[1] Anti-narcotics chief Nguyen Anh Tuan called it the largest amount of drugs Vietnam had ever discovered.[1] A US diplomatic cable dates the seizure operation to 13 May and describes a special interagency task force of counter-narcotics, provincial, sea-police and customs units.[2]

The containers had been unloaded at Haiphong port, declared as jeans from Pakistan, and were being trucked to the Mong Cai border gate for onward shipment to China; press reports also named Canada as an intended destination.[1][2] The five men had entered Vietnam on 10 May and were believed to own the shipment.[1] They had been hired in April 2008 by men known as A Giai and A Tran to move the consignment from Pakistan to Canada.[3]

After a four-day trial, the People’s Court of Quang Ninh Province sentenced all five, Chinese nationals aged 42 to 52, to death by firing squad for trafficking nearly eight tons of marijuana by sea.[3] The court confiscated 19,600 jeans used as cover and HK$1.5 million in assets.[3] The men had also been charged with smuggling almost $180,000 in cash.[4] Vietnam punishes trafficking 5 kg or more of marijuana resin with death.[1]