HANOI (AFP) - A Philippine man and woman have been sentenced to death in Vietnam for smuggling nearly 5kg of cocaine into the communist country, reports said on Friday.

Emmanuel Sillo Camacho, 39, was found guilty at a trial in Hanoi on Thursday of carrying 18 packages of cocaine - totalling some 3.4kg - to Vietnam from Brazil, the Tien Phong newspaper said. He was caught with the drugs at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport in 2013.

Donna Buenagua Mazon, also 39, was sentenced to death by a court in southern Ho Chi Minh city earlier this month, after being caught with 1.5kg of cocaine in December 2013.

Communist Vietnam maintains some of the world's toughest anti-drug laws. Anyone found guilty of possessing more than 600g of heroin, or more than 20kg of opium, can face the death sentence.

Dozens of foreigners have been sentenced over drug offences, although it has been decades since a foreign national was executed in the communist country.