Nguyen Tran was a captain with the Saigon Police Department. He was one of the three captains who made up a triad known as the Devil's Three, along with Ngo Van Binh and Van Nguyen. Tran and the members of the Devil's Three received payoffs from vice and drug operators in Saigon amounting to tens of millions of dollars each. They also engaged in smuggling brown heroin to the U.S., often using American military personnel to carry the drugs in diplomatic pouches.