Vietnamese police have detained a local person for transporting 30 cakes of heroin (10.5 kg), local newspaper Saigon Liberation reported Wednesday.

The person from Hanoi capital city was caught red-handed in northern Ha Tay province on Tuesday while the person was carrying the drug in an automobile. The detainee is a member in a ring which involves in trafficking drugs from Laos to Vietnam.

The case is under investigation, said the report.

The number of drug addicts in Vietnam surged 56.8 percent to 158,428 in 2005 from 101,036 in 2000, according to a recent national conference.

Vietnam, which has targeted to become a drug-free country by 2015, annually spends estimated 320 billion Vietnamese dong (20.1 million U.S. dollars) on detoxification activities.

Source: Xinhua