Hanoi - Police in Vietnam have arrested a man after finding a handgun and 15 bullets in his checked luggage at Hanoi's international airport, an official said Tuesday. Pham Van Cong, 20, was arrested early Sunday on arrival at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi. Cong arrived on a Vietnam Airlines flight from the Czech Republic, having made a transit stop in France, according to Dao Van Lien, director of the airport's Customs Department.
"I don't know why the foreign customs didn't detect the gun and the bullets in his luggage, which were packed in a wine box," Lien said.
Vietnamese citizen Cong told the police that he hadn't know about the gun in his luggage and that his mother packed the luggage for him, Lien said. Cong had been visiting his parents in the Czech Republic.
Lien said Cong was handed over to Hanoi police, who launched an investigation.
In November last year, Vietnamese police arrested an American couple of Vietnamese origin, Le Van Phan and his wife Nguyen Thi Thinh, after a gun and ammunition were allegedly found in their luggage at the international airport in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnamese press reports said the two had confessed to carrying the gun, and accused them of involvement with the Viet Tan party. The couple was released and deported from Vietnam in December.
