Hanoi - Police in Vietnam have seized more than 800,000 methamphetamine tablets illegally brought into the country from Laos, local media said Friday.

The pink tablets, weighing nearly 54 kilograms, were seized Tuesday when anti-narcotics forces in Quang Binh province, 488 kilometres south of Hanoi, found four people illegally crossing the border between Vietnam and Laos, the newspaper Nhan Dan reported.

Police arrested Tran Khanh Toan while the other three people escaped through thick mist into Laos, leaving three large bags of methamphetamine pills behind, the newspaper said.

Vietnamese and Laotian police had tightened patrols along the border after being tipped off that the ring was transporting the drug from the Golden Triangle, a drug-production area on the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, the report said.

A provincial anti-narcotics official who provided only his last name, Tuyen, confirmed the seizure and said further investigation was under way.

According to Vietnam's penal code, stockpiling, transporting, trading in or appropriating 2 kilograms or more of narcotics in solid form is punishable by death.

Vietnam has this year sentenced at least 29 people to death, including 13 for drug crimes. (dpa)