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Paying informants boosts south China drug arrests

Xinhua, January 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Police in south China's Guangdong Province arrested more than 30,000 drug traffickers and dealers in 2015, helped in many of the cases by paid public tip-offs, an official with the provincial public security department said on Thursday.

Raids last year also found 200,000 people taking drugs, 10 percent more than in 2014, said Deng Jianwei, head of the department's narcotics control bureau.

Some 75,000 of these were newly-identified drug users, taking the registered number in Guangdong to 565,000, about a sixth of China's total.

Guangdong police have paid out more than 24 million yuan (3.6 million U.S dollars) for drugs tip-offs since the start of 2013, when they began the practice, Deng said.

On Thursday, a man who provided tips that led to the busting of a 20-person drugs ring in Foshan claimed a reward of 450,000 yuan. He arrived at the police station wearing a mask to protect his identity.

"The manpower of the police is not enough in the battle against drugs, and we need help from the public," Deng said, highlighting that the police now accept tip-offs by WeChat. Endi