BEIJING: IN one of the biggest cases of its kind in Shanghai in recent years, three people have been detained after being caught with 50 kilograms of methamphetamine, officials said.
A woman from Guangdong Province, surnamed Lu, and her accomplices allegedly transported the drug to Shanghai in a fruit van.
Police officers intercepted the van at the Fengjing toll gate on the G60 Shanghai-Kunming Highway on May 20 and found bags of the drug stuffed in metal cans, said officials.
Suspicions were aroused when Lu, who lived in Songjiang District, started selling fruit at a wholesale produce market in Putuo District at prices significantly lower than the market value.
“Because Lu used fruit to sneak the drug into Shanghai, she was eager to get rid it in case the presence of a large amount of fruit in her apartment made neighbors suspicious,” said Shen Yi, a Putuo police official.
In another case, eight suspects have been detained after police seized 43.9 kilograms of methamphetamine and shut down two drug manufacturing operations in Chengdu and Suining in Sichuan Province in May. One of the suspects is believed to have been in contact with known drug addicts in Shanghai.
Police said that in about 80 percent of cases involving trafficking and transporting drugs, the illegal substances have entered Shanghai by road.
“We have stepped up checks at highway crossings,” said Ye Feng, head of the Drug Combating Department at Shanghai Public Security Bureau.
Under Chinese law, manufacturing, smuggling, transporting or selling over 50 grams of methamphetamine or heroin carries a sentence ranging from 15 years in prison to death.
Between January and May this year, 849 suspects were held in 833 drug cases and 179 kilograms of drugs were seized, police said.
Yesterday more than 1,600 kilograms of illegal drugs seized since May 2012 were destroyed at a facility at Shanghai Chemical Industry Park.
