Vietnamese-English woman caught transporting $247,000 through Hanoi airport

By Hai Thu   July 1, 2024 | 05:11 pm PT
A Hanoi woman returning from the U.K. was charged with illegally transporting money across the border after carrying £215,000 ($247,486) in cash through security scanners.

Prosecutors said Nguyen Thanh Huyen, 64, entered Vietnam after landing at Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport on Nov. 30 last year. She then took her luggage and entered the lane reserved for goods that do not require customs declaration.

Security personnel then scanned Huyen’s luggage, including three briefcases and three carry-on bags, the scanners showed stacks of paper inside the luggage. As the stacks were suspected to be money, Huyen’s luggage was then searched manually.

Authorities found £215,000 inside the luggage, 50 times over the allowed amount. Huyen was then handed over to police, along with all the seized evidence.

Huyen said she emigrated to the U.K. in 1979 and gained citizenship there in 1982. She had returned to Vietnam several times since to see her family. The money she brought back was the money she earned with her business, which she intended to use to buy houses and goods in Vietnam, before transporting local Vietnamese goods to the U.K. to sell in her supermarket.

Huyen still has her Vietnamese citizenship.

Vietnamese regulations require that people bringing with them over $5,000 worth of cash into Vietnam through the border declare it with customs.

 
 
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