Police said the heroin, valued at more than 3 million yuan (US$362,319), belonged to a four-member criminal group that reportedly operated in Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
The heroin was processed and transported from Gansu, according to Yang Lu, an official with the Hongkou District Public Security Bureau.
The largest heroin bust in the city's history occurred in 1998, when authorities confiscated nearly 84 kilograms from a similar drug gang.
The suspects have reputedly been committing crimes in the city for the past two years.
"These criminal gangs and their drug rings have brought the specter of `professional crime' to Shanghai,'' Yang said. "They are well organized and stratified and the members are paid every month like normal employees.''
MDMA (a hallucinatory drug otherwise known as "esctacy'' that is popular in discos) and "ice'' are the two most popular drugs besides heroin in Shanghai. Both MDMA and "ice'' usually come from Hong Kong and overseas, police sources revealed.
"Shanghai is still facing a grim drug situation with the numbers of drug abusers increasing yearly,'' Fang Dinghua, spokeswoman for the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, told reporters.
In 2000, the city uncovered 23,783 MDMA pills and 63,900 grams heroin, leading to the arrest of more than 2,000 drug suppliers, according to Shanghai police statistics.
(China Daily 03/15/2001)
