Hunan police seize 90kg of heroin 'smuggled in from Myanmar'
Criminal gangs operating near border suspected in one of the year's biggest drug busts
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 18 September, 2014, 3:18pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 18 September, 2014, 3:28pm
James Griffiths [email protected]
More than 90 kilograms of heroin was seized by police in China's Hunan province. Photo: Xinhua
Police in China’s Hunan province have seized more than 90 kilograms of heroin and six million yuan (HK$7.5 million) in cash in one of the year’s biggest drug busts.
At a press conference on Wednesday, police displayed more than 100 packets of heroin, with a combined weight of 93.8kg, believed to have been smuggled into China from Myanmar.
Police said the street value of the drugs was around 56 million yuan (HK$70 million). Forty-two suspects were arrested, and several vehicles were also seized.
Changsha public security bureau narcotics officer Zhang Aiguo told the Xiaoxiang Morning Post that the case involved a network of criminal gangs stretching from the Myanmar-Yunnan border to Jiangsu, Hunan and Hubei provinces. More than 200 police officers took part in the investigation which took more than eight months.
Six million yuan in cash was also seized by investigators, who had been working on the case for over 8 months. Photo: Xinhua
Demand for heroin is great in China, with most of the drugs entering the country coming from opium producing areas in Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. Almost 90 per cent of heroin from the so-called “Golden Triangle” is exported to China.
“We estimate that China uses around 65 tonnes of heroin annually and there’s not enough heroin in the Golden Triangle to meet that demand, so heroin from Afghanistan is coming in as well to supplement it,” Tun Nay Soe, a narcotics production monitor with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told the South China Morning Post last year.
The Hunan seizure comes in a big month for Chinese drug cops. On September 11, police in Jiangsu province seized more than 2,000kg of stimulants and arrested 16 people, the province’s largest ever drug bust.
Cars and credit cards were also confiscated from the 42 suspects arrested in connection with the bust. Photo: Xinhua
