A two-year operation involving Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Thai police forces has smashed a cross-border drug ring resulting in the arrest of 11 people and the seizure of 57.4 kilograms of heroin.
It is the first drug-trafficking action involving such cooperation. Details of the operation were announced by the General Administration of Customs in Beijing yesterday.
Initial investigations indicate the alleged ringleader Zhong Wan-yi, a Taiwanese, who'd been operating around the Thai border in southwest China's Yunnan Province had been involved in drug trafficking to Taiwan.
The location of his arrest was close to the "Golden Triangle," an area notorious for drug trafficking. The "Triangle" covers parts of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar but not China. The sequence of events emerged in a statement released by the administration.
April 2004: Yunnan border police were informed that a drug trafficking group, posing as Taiwan businessmen, were seeking refuge in Kunmin. The investigation discovered the group had heroin supplies from the "Triangle" area and were smuggling them from Bangkok to Taiwan aboard container ships. The information was passed to the Criminal Investigation Bureau in Taiwan and Narcotics Control Departments in Thailand and a joint task force was set up.
January 5, 2006: Investigators from Taiwan were dispatched to Macao and south China's Guangdong Province to discuss the case with their mainland counterparts.
January 26: Following a tip off from the mainland Taiwan authorities solved a related trafficking case and seized a handgun and ammunition.
February 3: Two other drug-smuggling cases were cracked in Taiwan's Taichong and Keelong harbors. A total of 57.4 kilograms of heroin worth more than 200 million yuan (US$25 million) were found in containers loaded with Rosewood furniture from Thailand.
Meanwhile, Yunnan border police arrested Zhong and his girlfriend, Chen Pei, on an estate in Kunming. His main distributor in Taiwan, Chen Dengyue, was caught in Taichong on the same day.
Taiwan media reported at the weekend that seven suspects had been arrested on the mainland and three were taken into custody on the island. The Ministry of Public Security would not confirm the figure yesterday saying only that 11 suspects had been arrested for drug trafficking while at least 20 others remained at large. The names of those arrested were not available and it is not known where they will be prosecuted.
Liu Xiaohui, deputy chief of the ministry's Anti-Smuggling Bureau, said the cracking of the case marked a good start for cooperation between police forces across the Straits.
"We are going to increase such cooperation and leave no room for those who intend to make use of the current political situation across the Straits to become involved in criminal activities," said the deputy chief.
Latest information from the ministry explains that a joint task force of police from the mainland, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Taiwan have been working on another successful drug trafficking case. At least 14 kilograms of heroin was seized in that operation.
(China Daily February 16, 2006)
