THE Shenzhen Criminal Investigation Department (Shenzhen CID) said over the weekend that it had busted five Hong Kong drug dealers in the city March 9, cutting off a chain through which drugs has been trafficked from Vietnam to Hong Kong via Guangxi and Guangdong.

Three of the suspects are allegedly from a Hong Kong gang. The operation seized 16.09 kilograms of all sorts of drugs, of which 12.6 kilograms were high-purity heroin worth nearly 70 million yuan (US$10.28 million).

The CID detected that a group of Hong Kongers were frequently dealing drugs in Shenzhen at the beginning of this year. Through an investigation, the CID identified the five suspects.

One of the suspects, a 48-year-old surnamed Lam, was a member of a Hong Kong gang. He was released from prison in September 2000 after being jailed for six years for a robbery in Hong Kong. Lam was in charge of receiving, unpacking and blending the drugs before having them delivered to Hong Kong.

The other four suspects were identified as Biaoge, Bozi, Q-Zi and Ah-Feng. They formed an international drug trafficking chain from Vietnam to Hong Kong. Most of the drugs were smuggled to Hong Kong, except a small portion that was sold in Shenzhen.

Biaoge and Bozi were responsible for picking up the drugs in Guangxi. They normally would drive overnight for eight or nine hours from Shenzhen to a place called Dongxi to collect the goods and return to Shenzhen the next day.

On March 7, the CID learned that they had left Shenzhen for Guangxi to pick up heroine at midnight and presumed they would arrive in Shenzhen on March 8 or 9 with the drugs.

Thirty police officers in five teams were sent out to monitor Biaoge and Bozi. At around 2 p.m. March 9, Bozi entered a supermarket in Luohu District with a paper bag. He put the bag inside a locker at the entrance of the supermarket and walked into the supermarket with the deposit receipt that would open the locker.

Police officers followed Bozi to the bathroom on the fourth floor of the supermarket and saw him place the receipt under a rubbish bin. Ten minutes later, Ah-Feng got the receipt and opened the locker to get the paper bag. The officers busted Ah-Feng, who was holding the 3.5 kilograms of heroin in his hand.

Meanwhile, the other operation teams busted Bozi with another 3.5 kilograms of heroin, and the others at their homes in Longgang, Luohu and Futian districts. (Zhang Qian)