Vietnamese woman arrested while transporting $247,000 through Hanoi airport

According to prosecutors, Nguyen Thanh Huyen, 64, entered Vietnam after landing at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi on November 30, 2011. She then picked up her luggage and entered the line reserved for goods that do not require customs declaration.

Security officers then searched Huyen’s luggage, which included three briefcases and three carry-on bags. Scanners revealed stacks of papers inside the luggage. As these stacks were suspected to be money, Huyen’s luggage was then manually searched.

Authorities discovered £215,000 in the luggage, 50 times more than the authorised amount. Huyen was later handed over to police, along with all the seized evidence.

Huyen said she emigrated to the UK in 1979 and obtained Vietnamese citizenship in 1982. She has returned to Vietnam several times since then to see her family. The money she brought back from her trip came from her business, which she planned to use to buy houses and property in Vietnam, before transporting local Vietnamese produce to the UK to sell in her supermarket.

Huyen still has his Vietnamese nationality.

Vietnamese regulations require people bringing more than $5,000 in cash into Vietnam across the border to declare it to customs.