Tuoi Tre newspaper said Nguyen Thi Huong, 73, was convicted of trafficking 3.5 pounds of heroin by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in a trial that lasted half a day yesterday.
Huong, who was originally from Vietnam, was arrested in December 2014 when checking in for a flight to Australia after the heroin was found hidden in 36 bars of soap in her luggage.
The court rejected Huong's statement that a woman gave her the soap bars and that she did not know that they contained the heroin.