A gang selling drugs and loud nights out in an unimaginable place
While the psychiatric patient, Nguyen Xuan Quyi, was supposed to undergo rehabilitation treatment in a psychiatric hospital, the 39-year-old turned his room into a party venue where he dealt drugs and nightlife, after he was able to equip his room with soundproofing and strong lights. Speakers, a DJ's sound engineer's table, and various amounts of narcotic pills.
However, that ended when the police raided his hospital room in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, and then confiscated the drugs and arrested those present.
Last Wednesday, he was sentenced to death along with another man, and eight others involved were sentenced to long prison terms.
The story begins after Nguyen was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 2018, as a psychiatric patient, and Cui became friends with the hospital staff, giving him accommodation privileges not granted to other residents.
By the end of 2020, his hospital room was a soundproofed haven, where hospital staff and fellow residents would enjoy loud music and a variety of party drugs, and on some occasions, Koi even brought sex workers to his premises.
He later succeeds in recruiting addicted hospital inmates to help run his own drug cartel, which also sells to people outside the hospital.
By the time they were arrested by the police, more than 15 kilograms of drugs had been found. Koi's room was raided on the same day, where the police found five kilograms of various drugs, and laptops.
According to local reports whose summary was published by Vice As magazine, people who arrived at the hospital to buy medicines from Koi often pretend to be the caregivers of patients.
Coy also sometimes sent his partners to meet clients outside the hospital.
Besides Coy and his partner, four others were convicted of drug gang involvement and sentenced to prison terms ranging from five years to life.
Two nurses and a hospital technician were also sentenced to five to seven years in prison after telling the court that they knew Koi was using and selling drugs in the hospital, but they did not tell their superiors.
Do Thi Lo, a former hospital department head and Koi doctor, was sentenced to three years in prison for abuse of power.
It remains unclear whether those at the top of the hospital administration knew about their inmate's drug ring, although reports the hospital submitted to the Ministry of Health claimed they did not.
Several hospital executives were reprimanded for not adequately monitoring the hospital.
According to prosecutors, Koi was previously diagnosed with a mental disorder although the court said this was not a mitigating factor in his sentence, and considered him to be in stable condition and acting with sufficient independence in relation to his actions when committing the crimes.
More than 1,000 people are currently on death row in Vietam.
In addition to drug-related crimes, the death penalty is applied to dozens of crimes, including armed robbery, rape, and corruption.
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