BEIJING: As many as 20 people were arrested and over USD 125,000 seized after Chinese police busted a large drug racket being run from a chicken farm in southern China, officials said today. More than 200 police officers busted the racket after raiding a factory in Gusi, a remote mountain village in Nanning on May 31, in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to Nanning public security bureau. They confiscated more than 560 kilogrammes of methamphetamine, commonly known as ice, and over 140 kilogrammes of chloroephedrine, an in-process material for making methamphetamine, drug-making equipment and around USD 127,000, they said. Guangxi police received information early in March that a man named Liang might be producing drugs in a suburb of Nanning. After a three-month probe, a large drug racket covering Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces was uncovered, state- run Xinhua news agency reported.
The drug ring was well organised. The members were either relatives or fellow-villagers of Liang. Between January to May, Nanning police have arrested 263 drug suspects, seized more than 2,200 kilogrammes of drugs, 89 times more than it seized in the same period last year. Further investigation is on, police said. Methamphetamine is a white crystalline drug that people smoke or inhale through the nose or take by injecting it with a needle.
