In a joint operation, Vietnamese border guards and Lao police caught the three Lao nationals, between 40 and 46 years of age, one kilometer from a border gate in Vietnam's Quang Tri Province.

They were transporting the pills in a car. The men told the police they had bought the pills in Laos and were planning to smuggle them to Vietnam.

Vietnam is a key trafficking hub for narcotics from the Golden Triangle, an intersection of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, the world's second largest drug producing area after the Golden Crescent in South Asia.

Last Saturday, border guards in the north of Vietnam and Laos arrested two Lao men who were seeking to smuggle 120,000 ecstasy pills into Vietnam.

Drug trafficking and consumption have persisted and worsened in Vietnam over the last few years though it has some of the world’s toughest laws, including death sentence for smuggling.