Police in Ho Chi Minh City airport have arrested three Vietnamese-Australians for allegedly trafficking around two kilograms of heroin

Police in Vietnam’s largest city have arrested three Vietnamese-Australians for allegedly trafficking around two kilograms of heroin, media is reporting.The three were arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport on Tuesday (local time), the Cong An Nhan Dan (People’s Police) newspaper said, without identifying them or saying what flight they had planned to board.Police in the communist country also confiscated $10,000 and six mobile telephones, the report said.Vietnam is considered a major trafficking hub for the heroin trade, on route to Australia, where hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees and migrants have settled since the Vietnam war ended in 1975.Several Vietnamese-Australians have been arrested this year for trying to smuggle heroin on aircraft, often concealed inside their bodies.On June 13 police arrested three Vietnamese-Australians accused of being members of a drug trafficking ring, including a woman who had tried to board a flight to Australia carrying 250 grams of heroin.Police seized a 35-year-old Vietnamese-Australian woman 10 days earlier when a condom packed with drugs burst inside her body and she required hospital treatment.Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, and possessing or trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin carries the death penalty, but the nation has so far refrained from executing any Australian citizens.Foreign Minister Stephen Smith last week said he had supported clemency appeals by two Vietnamese-Australians in talks with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.