The judges Thursday found Nguyen Xuan Chi, 46, Le Dinh Tho, 46, and Trieu Thi Van, 49, guilty of trafficking 1,050 grams of heroin and 36,000 pills of synthetic drugs from Lang Son to capital city Hanoi in August 2017.

The police had detected the drugs hidden in boxes of longans when checking a car driven by Tho.

They later arrested Van and Chi. The three were members of a gang that smuggled drugs from Vietnam's Son La Province on the Lao borders to Hanoi en route to China.

Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine face the death penalty.

The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death.

The country is also 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.