At 8:30 a.m. on December 21, 2019, local police stopped a pickup truck with two people traveling from a border gate with Laos on National Highway 12A near a commune in the central province of Quang Binh, and requested to check its trunk.

However, the suspects accelerated their vehicle and tried to escape the police. The pickup hit the guardrails of the road and stopped, but the two men fled into the jungle bordering Laos before the police were able to approach the vehicle.

Police seized 248.99 kg of methamphetamine from the vehicle.

The two suspects were later identified as Lau A Hong, 26, and Vang A Lu of Na U Commune from the northern Dien Bien Province.

The police did not provide further information or comment on why an arrest warrant was issued for only one of the two suspects.

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

Despite Vietnam's tough drug laws including death sentences for making, smuggling and trading in drugs, drug busts have become increasingly frequent in recent years.