2nd LD Writethru-China Focus: China captures 169,000 drug suspects in 2014

China captured 169,000 drug crime suspects last year, 60 percent of whom were under the age of 35, with nearly 90 percent having failed to finish middle school, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report on China's drug situation, the first released by the Chinese government, said drug smuggling is rampant and "more and more organized and professional, carried out in covert and cunning ways through multiple and constantly changing channels."

"While traditional drug trafficking such as concealment in human bodies or cars, and trafficking by road are still prevalent, new methods have emerged, such as trafficking online, by post, by air express and through the logistics system," the report said.

The suspects came from a variety of social groups, including workers, farmers, students and private business owners, but nearly 70 percent were unemployed, mostly from underdeveloped areas.

"Tempted by profits, they are hired or used by drug dealers to engage in trafficking, which not only endangers society, but is harmful to themselves and their families," the report said.

However, Liu Yuejin, assistant minister of public security, pointed out that significant numbers of public employees, freelancers and entertainers use drugs; an extremely bad influence on youngsters.

DRUG TRAFFICKING OVERSEAS

The report said nearly 55 percent of drug crime was related to trafficking by land, including by taxi, private car or public transportation.

"To dodge law enforcers, criminals have changed their trafficking vector to sea, air or post," it said. "It is common to find drugs hidden in personal belongings, consigned luggage, human bodies, cars or in postal parcels, and cases related to simultaneous trafficking of guns and drugs. Armed transportation of drugs and violent resistance of law enforcers happen from time to time."

Drugs were not only brought to China by land, sea, air, post and other channels, China's domestic production of crystal methamphetamine, ketamine and other new psychoactive substances went in the other direction, the report said.

Police closed nearly 1,500 drug cases committed by foreigners and seized more than 1,800 foreign suspects last year, involving 44 countries. African drug gangs have been a problem in south China's Guangdong Province for a long time. They now conspire with Pakistani and other groups to recruit couriers of various nationalities.

DOMESTIC TRAFFICKING

Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangdong provinces are the main domestic sources of drugs, according to the report.

While Yunnan and neighboring Guangxi are the first port of call for Golden Triangle drugs arriving in China by land, Guangdong, Sichuan, and Chongqing, near Yunnan, are the transit and distribution centers.

Guangdong is the main entry point for heroin from the Golden Crescent by air and post, and most provincial capitals and economically developed cities have become regional drug consumption and distributing centers, the report said.

LOGISTIC DELIVERY, INTERNET-BASED DRUG CRIMES

With the fast development of the logistics industry, it has become a key channel for trafficking. "Online communication, payment and delivery" has become a new trafficking mode.

In December 2014, the police launched a campaign against Internet drug crime, targeting seven major cases involving nearly 100 chat groups on Tencent QQ, an instant messaging service, and about 2,000 QQ accounts. The police seized or monitored more than 700 suspects all over China as well as in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore.

Drug criminals communicate with each other through instant messengers, open online stores to do deals, pay through online payment systems and deliver drugs through logistics services.

"Such approaches challenge law enforcement agencies," the report said.

China had 2.95 million registered drug addicts at the end of 2014, but the real number of those who have used narcotics is thought to exceed 14 million, according to the Ministry of Public Security. That means one out of every 100 Chinese may have used drugs.

Although the spread of traditional drugs such as heroin has been largely curbed, the number of identified synthetic drug addicts has risen sharply to 1.46 million, six times the number in 2008. Endi