Police in southwest China today claimed to have busted a cross-border drug-smuggling gang after apprehending 37 people, including four from Myanmar who had swallowed 183 packets of cannabis that was sneaked into the country.
The four Myanmarese were caught in Yinbin City police in Sichuan Province caught in May when during a regular check police officers found them behaving suspiciously.
When their medical examination was carried out, a number of thumb-size shadows were discovered in their stomachs in the x-ray, they said.
The four suspects eventually excreted 183 plastic drug packets, weighing a total of 916 grammes, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The drugs included heroin, methamphetamine and yaba (a stimulant composed of methamphetamine and caffeine), it added.
Police investigation revealed that the four men had been asked to smuggle the drugs from Myanmar to Chongqing and were promised 260 yuan (USD 40) for each packet transported successfully.
The other gang suspects were caught in Chongqing City and Yunnan over the past few months, the police said, adding among the 37 suspects, six were Myanmarese.
So far, police in the case have seized more than 440 grammes of methamphetamine, 26 grammes of yaba, over one kg of heroin and eight guns, the report said.
In a separate development, China's customs staff and police officers have caught 13 people and seized more than 5,200 pieces of smuggled mink fur from them.
The joint operation was launched by the customs and the police from the cities of Nanning, Shenzhen and Shijiazhuang, according to officials.
The suspects confessed to illegally transporting 1.85 lakh pieces of mink fur, worth around 72 million yuan (USD 11 million), since July through the China-Vietnam border, Nanning customs officials said.
The fur was purchased by Chinese buyers at overseas auctions. They were then delivered to provinces including Hebei, claimed as wool or clothes, they said.
The customs said that the gang was suspected of evading tariffs of around 17 million yuan (approximately USD 2.5 million).
High-end mink is usually imported with high duties. This has led smugglers using fake commodity names or to report low prices to evade tariffs, according to the customs.
Officials have warned that smuggled animal fur can carry pathogenic micro-organisms, which can spread diseases.
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