Thai man caught in red carrying 2.4 kg of drugs gets life-sentence

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Pimtanatanasuk Kettawan

On the afternoon of April 20, 2016, when Kettawan tried to transit into Vietnam, the customs force of Tan Son Nhat Airport discovered a pair of shoes in his luggage contained strange substances. After searching, local forces detected 2.4 kg of drugs inside the shoes.

At the local investigation agency, Kettawan declared that, in early 2016, he met an African-American man named John at a casino in Cambodia. John hired Kettawan to transport some unknown goods from South Africa to Thailand for $2,000, plus airfare and food expenses.

In mid-April of 2016, John gave Kettawan $500 for plane tickets to South Africa. Here, Kettawan received a pair of shoes and a briefcase from unknown locals and was asked to bring the things to Thailand. When the flight was transited in Vietnam, he was caught in red carrying such a large amount of drugs by the Vietnamese authorities.

At an instance trial held on April 18, the Ho Chi Minh City Municipal People’s Court sentenced defendant Pimtanatanasuk Kettawan (42, Thai nationality) to life imprisonment for "Illegal transportation of narcotics".

At the trial, although Kettawan said he had no idea about the drugs in the pair of shoes and in the briefcase but the court still brought the charge against him as he could not to prove the origin of the drugs nor to identify the man hiring him.