Tran Tuan Khanh, 30, was arrested in Long An’s Kien Tuong Town, which borders Cambodia and is about 93 km to the west of HCMC.

He was caught while passing through a border gate to enter Vietnam from Cambodia with a bag containing 20.8 kg of drugs, two K59 pistols, a Zoraki pistol, a magazine and 25 bullets.

Khanh said he’d bought the guns and drugs from an unidentified person in Cambodia and intended to sell them in Vietnam.

Vietnam has some of the harshest punishments for drug trafficking, awarding death to those convicted of possessing or smuggling over 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine and to those producing or selling 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics.

However, this does not seem to have had a deterrent effect, with increasing drug trafficking cases coming to light in recent years.