Police in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, have seized 56.4 kilograms of heroin and caught three suspects, sources with the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security said Wednesday.

This was the largest amount of heroin the Guangzhou police have seized this year, sources said.

Acting on a tip, the local police ambushed the drug traffickers on the morning of Nov. 12 as they prepared to leave the location where they had transferred a tank of a truck to a mini-van.

The heroin was spotted hidden in the tank by the police, and the three suspects were later identified as a drug dealer surnamed Li from south China's Yunnan Province, a local buyer surnamed Zhu and the mini-van's driver surnamed Zhong, according to sources.

This was the latest move of a special campaign launched by the National Narcotics Control Commission and the Ministry of Public Security in September this year to crack down on drug smuggling from the Golden Triangle, an area between Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, notorious for its drug production and trafficking.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2003)