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NEWS - Police Seize Largest Heroin



Subject: NEWS - Police Seize Largest Heroin Haul Of Year In Guangdong

Police Seize Largest Heroin Haul Of Year In Guangdong

                                         BEIJING, Aug 16, 1999 --
(Agence
                                         France Presse) Police seized
166
                                         kilograms (365 pounds) of
heroin and
                                         arrested 11 suspected drug
traffickers
                                         in a raid in southern China,
officials
                                         said Monday.

                                         The China Daily said the haul,
                                         discovered in Guangdong
province
                                         which borders Hong Kong, was
the
                                         largest this year in the
province.

                                         The report said the drugs,
believed to
                                         be from Myanmar, were found in
a
                                         truck used by three
drug-trafficking
                                         gangs from Guangdong and
Yunnan, a
                                         province which lies next to
Myanmar.

                                         The raid netted eleven
suspects, but
                                         several of their accomplices
managed
                                         to escape.

                                         Drug use in China, all but
wiped out
                                         within a decade of the
communist
                                         takeover in 1949, has come back
with
                                         a vengeance since China's
program of
                                         economic liberalization was
launched
                                         at the start of the 1980s.

                                         According to official figures,
heroin seizures rose by 34
                                         percent last year to 7.3 metric
tons and the number of
                                         addicts rose by 9 percent to
600,000 people.

                                         In June, at least 125 drug
traffickers were executed in
                                         China in a massive crackdown on
drug-related crime. ((c)
                                         1999 Agence France Presse)