Vietnamese Women Forced to Act as Drug Mules for Gambling Debt Forgiveness
A Swinburn University research study found that one in every five Vietnamese females serving time in Victoria, Australia prisons had been charged with drug offenses.
The study delve deeper to reveal the vast majority of these women had to pay 10 per cent interest every week on loans, many of which were taken in order to pay off casino gambling debts ranging between $30,000 and $1 million. The women were often used to transport illicit drugs on their person.
Wealthy Vietnamese gamblers at Crown Casino would offer the women loans.
When the women were unable to repay the loans, they were offered the chance to import heroin as drug mules or "crop sit" at a marijuana grow house.
Some of them had started gambling to pay the debts of their husbands, who sometimes had second families in Vietnam that placed further strain on their finances.
Dr Le found that the women were expected to pay the debts of their husbands or partners because of extreme gender inequality in Vietnamese culture, as demonstrated by proverbs such as "one hundred women are not worth a single testicle".
During Operation Taxa, one of Victoria Police's largest operations targeting cannabis cultivation, officers said Vietnamese crime families were responsible for the vast majority of grow houses.
More than a third of all people banned from the casino by police are believed to be Vietnamese, including some convicted of money laundering and drug offences, according to The Age.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
