Enormous Amount of Heroin Seized in ChinaHuge quantities of heroin were seized in the first quarter of the year, according to a senior Ministry of Public Security official Thursday.During the January-March period, Chinese police cracked 27 major heroin cases, each of which involved at least 10 kg of heroin, and seized more than 2,000 kg of heroin in total, a rise of 125 percent and 207 percent respectively compared with the same period of last year. Although the number of major heroin cases was only 0.2 percent of the total number of heroin-related cases, the amount of heroin seized from those cases accounted for 71 percent of the total, an increase of 35 percent. In response to calls from the State Narcotics Control Commission, Chinese police forces intensified the crackdown on the illegal trade of narcotics in the first quarter of this year and made marked achievements. According to official statistics, police cracked more than 16,000 drug cases of various sorts in the three-month period, a rise of 13 percent compared with the corresponding period of last year. They also netted over 10,000 people suspected of trafficking, trading or transporting narcotics, with some 3,100 kg of heroin, 600 kg of "ice", 780 kg of opium, and over 5,600 tablets of MDMA amphetamine (ecstasy) seized from the suspects. Roughly 89 percent of the above-mentioned criminal suspects have had an educational background of less than junior middle school, the statistics show. |
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