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Vietnamese flight attendant charged with gold smuggling

By VnExpress March 15, 2017 | 11:15 am GMT+7

The woman and her husband were caught trying to smuggle $220,000 worth of gold.

A former Vietnamese flight attendant, her husband and an aircraft technician were charged Tuesday, with smuggling gold from Vietnam to South Korea, Voice of Vietnam reported.

Last July, Hoang Thi Ngoc Anh, 35, paid an aircraft repair technician to smuggle four gold bars worth more than $220,000 onto a plane parked at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi.

Prosecutors say the technician received VND2 million ($88) to sneak the gold under a seat Anh had booked on the plane.

At midnight on July 27, the former flight attendant and her husband were arrested in their seats.

Investigators say Anh managed to smuggle 20 taels of gold (26.4 ounces) into South Korea prior to her arrest.

Ngoc Anh worked as a crew member for the state-owned Vietnam Airlines before taking unpaid leave in 2014.