"Attention! Dress Right!"It's morning meeting
for the drug squad at Qing Long Chang. "Eyes
front! Sit down!"Here Lieutenant Li Liuhua
runs a 24-hour station where 70 officers rotate
on three shifts. This is the front line in
China's war on drugs flowing in from neighbouring
Myanmar and we've been given rare access to
see their operation. "This path is the major
one for drugs coming in. But they will probably
take the neighbouring roads".
The squad operates
a checkpoint near the border to filter drug
traffic. Lieutenant Li shows how the main
routes from Myanmar converge on that position
yet how more recently, the smart drug runners
have been getting around them via more isolated
paths.
Last year these officers played their part
in the interception of 9 tons of Burmese ice
coming into the country. They're taking on
some major business interests.
"Drug crime
is high-profit, serious crime. Driven by profit
and defending their interests, criminal syndicates
will take desperate risks - it's a struggle
of life and death".
Yunnan is a place that
dreams are made of. With its lush forests,
mountains, rivers and remote ethnic groups,
it's the China of paintings and poems right
there in front of you.
Yet there's a side
to this province not spoken of in the tourist
brochures. It's the staging post for a major
narcotics trade flowing in to meet Chinese
demand and lucrative markets beyond. We're
on our way to the thin line between the drug
runners and the rest of the world. "Well we're
driving through what has to be one of the
most beautiful parts of China and searching
for drugs. We're here with the Yunnan Provincial
Drug Squad. Mr Xue, he's showing us around
and I'll just have a bit of a word to him.
"Mr Xue do you think that recently it's been harder
or easier for you to apprehend people smuggling
drugs?""There have been a lot of cases and
it's not easy"."Not easy? Why?""With drugs
coming in from overseas, it's impossible to
stop them all. There are a lot of paths. Our
police forces don't have enough manpower - we
just don't have enough people".
The Chinese
police are patrolling a four thousand kilometre
border region here and they know they're battling
to keep it under control. We arrive at Qing
Long Chang to speak to them about the monumental
task they've been given of trying to hold
back the tide. This has become a very busy
unit indeed and we're about to see why.Here
Lieutenant Li Liuhua tells us that they can
go for weeks without a bust, yet sometimes
will catch multiple drug runners in quick
succession. China may be known for its media
control but he says we can film whatever happens
while we're here. And straight away they're
into it. No nook or cranny is beyond suspicion.
No bag of vegetables to be left unstabbed.
No delivery too urgent to be delayed and no
family enterprise is beyond being questioned.
"How often do you transport goods?" "If business
is good, probably once a day. If not, probably
every three or five days".
"We feel this is
getting more and more severe. There are more
and more drugs being processed both inside
and outside of China. There is more and more
demand so of course there will be more and
more smuggled drugs. So this really is becoming
a serious problem".
A black Audi pulls up and
it draws immediate attention. One officer
is responsible for picking suspicious vehicles
and this one has been identified as such.
It's not the type of car so much as who's
driving it. Girls in frilly dresses move through
pretty quickly. Young men in groups are prime
suspects. They also don't mind letting the
police know what an inconvenience it is. This
is not going to go smoothly. The police say
drug-related criminal cases in China were
up by 20% last year. According to their records,
this involved 133,000 arrests. Critics of
China's legal system would question not only
the voracity of these statistics but the procedural
fairness of police work here. Yet a substantial
increase in Chinese drug crime is also corroborated
by international sources.
"You wait here! You
wait here!""I'm going to get some water"."We're
checking now, why don't you cooperate?" "Ok.
Ok. After you check our vehicle, can we go
then?""We check you in accordance with the
law and you don't run around. You should just
rest here. Sit down".The water finally comes
and tempers cool a little but the search of
their car uncovers a secret compartment under
the boot. It's rammed with cartons of cigarettes.
These will all have to be checked. It also
means their car is now up for a thorough examination.
In the meantime a long distance bus has arrived
from the border and again it's the young men
who are asked to get off first to be scrutinised.
Bags are searched and questions asked. In
many parts of the world, even elsewhere in
China, it'd be seen as rather excessive for
police to drag passengers off a bus and frisk
them in this way simply because they're travelling
in a certain direction. But in Yunnan's drug
belt, it's becoming standard procedure.
One young man comes off the bus and he's not like
the others. He appears edgy, even as small
items are taken out of his pocket - and as
he's frisked from head to toe. This man is
scared. He joins the line of fellow passengers
who've been chosen for a scan in the x-ray
truck. He looks around and won't meet the
direct gaze of anyone, least of all our camera.
After all the others have been checked, it's
his turn.
"One, two, three pieces".
It seems
they've spotted something on the x-ray. "Here
is a bag. All together there are three bags.
It looks like ice. Yeah, it's pretty obvious.
He's inserted three bags at once".What they've
found inside this man are three packets of
methamphetamine, known on the streets as ice.
"There is nothing in his stomach. They are
around his anus. Get out of the van!"This
travelling man is now in serious trouble and
he's having the situation spelt out to him
pretty plainly. "Now, you shouldn't lie to
me. We can see from the X-ray machine, you're
carrying them inside your arse. You should
be honest with us - we'll give you this chance,
okay? You tell us right now. We have already
seen it from the equipment, you can't run
away. You don't need to be nervous, tell me
the truth, okay?"
His fellow travellers are
still not back on the bus and within earshot
of the conversation. "The reason they've put
this tape around him is because you know if
the drugs come out they don't want them to
fall out of the bottom of his jeans there.
"Once you brought the drugs across, how were
they going to contact you? How were they going
to contact you?"I don't know"."You don't know?
Let me tell you - stop telling lies to me.
You should cooperate with us immediately to
reduce the punishment. After all, you've only
transported these drugs for other people - they
don't belong to you". The young man slowly
begins to realise that his fate has been sealed
and starts to open up, telling him that he made this
run for the equivalent of five hundred dollars.
"For such a small amount of money,
you carried them? This is a crime. Drug trafficking
is a crime. To transport drugs is a crime
- do you know that? Do you know that?"I didn't
know they were drugs"."What?""I didn't know
they were drugs"."You didn't know they were
drugs? So why did you insert them inside you?
Why? "The police have been asking him how
much did you pay for the drugs... what time
did you insert them... what's your final destination...
who are the people ... obviously they're trying
to do a bit of a deal with him, saying if
you give up the people who've gotten you to
bring these drugs up here then we'll be more
lenient on you".
"I needed to be in Kunming
first"."Right so you needed to be in Kunming
and they would contact you from here. All
right - handcuff him". Most of the drug mules
they're catching are hardly big time criminals
and the police know it.
"For these people
they are very poor. The economy in their areas
is not good. More importantly, they are poorly
educated. They don't know about the law. They're
just pawns of the criminal groups".
With nightfall
a new shift marches into place. The checking,
searching and questioning rolls on relentlessly.
But as thorough and as persistent as they
are, they'll never get it all. "The drugs
they're carrying are where? Mostly. Inside
their bodies? Inside cars? Where?""Most of
them are hidden in the "sandwich layers" of
cars. For example, this part, you could have
a "sandwich layer". You can only see it from
underneath. In big trucks, they could be hidden
in goods and in "sandwich layers". Not as
much inside human bodies. You can stuff it
in, but not much quantity". Commissioner Jiang
Mingdong has been a drug squad police officer
in Yunnan for 30 years. He's proud of how
many drugs they've seized during his career.
"The amount is huge - more than 200 tons!
Can you imagine if we'd let those 200 tons float inland
or into the international community how much
damage it could've caused?"
Police here stage
mass burns of confiscated drugs. It's a public
relations exercise to send a message that
they're not a light touch. Many hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of drugs go up
in flames but the syndicates know it's nothing,
compared to the profits to be made if they
can transport these goods to lands far away,
to places like Australia.
Just take the AFP's
figures for this year's intercepts coming
into Australia from China. January, Perth,
methamphetamine 35 kilograms. June, Sydney,
methamphetamine, 57 kilograms, street value
$42 million. May, Sydney liquid methamphetamine,
72 litres. February, Sydney pure methamphetamine,
13 kilograms. February, Sydney, methamphetamine,
585 kilograms, street value $438 million.This
This last case was the largest ice seizure ever
seen in Australia. "There's Chinese organised
crime working in Australia but equally they're
working with Australian nationals, organised
criminals".Commander Ray Johnson worked out
of the Australian Federal Police Beijing station
for three years. "I think it's fair to say
that the drug problem in China is growing.
Yes, China is a source country for the supply
of an amount of drugs to Australia".Chinese
drugs are being smuggled into Australia in
garden hoses, bags of cleaning chemicals,
ceramic tiles and shampoo bottles. For methamphetamine
precursor chemicals coming into Australia
the major source is now China. For ecstasy
precursor chemicals coming into Australia
the major source by quantity is China. We
know this because Chinese and Australian police
are conducting joint operations. At times
they deliberately let the drugs go through
in order to catch everyone involved. "We might
discover the export from China and in cooperation
with our Chinse partners we could substitute
with an inert substance and allow the export
to become an import into Australia and then
for the while investigate the syndicate that
surrounds that import". When a series of container
ships arrived at Port Botany two years ago,
it marked the beginning of a major China-Australia
campaign to stem the flow of drugs between
the two countries. Hidden in these shipments
were more than 2,800 litres of the precursor
chemical safrole oil, enough to make millions
of ecstasy tablets and according to the AFP
with a street value of around $500 million.
In what was known as Operation Hitch, the
materials were seized, arrests made and police
say it led to the dismantling of an alleged
transnational drug importation syndicate."That
operation resulted in the arrest of three
people in Australia and it ultimately led
to the arrest of twenty three people in China
and the seizure of a further 500 litres".
Now
we're told barely a week goes by when criminal
intelligence is not being shared between China
and Australia, allowing Chinese police to
make arrests as well. Our drug squad has even
written a song trumpeting the team's success.
"The green mountains accompany me. The stars love
us. Day and night we persist and uphold our
work lines on the national roads. Though the
vehicles stream like a river, we will not
let any ferocious drug criminals get through.
No matter how cunning those drug traffickers
are and how they try to cover themselves our
penetrating eyes can see through them".
Qinglong Chang Drug Squad believes it has heroin basically
under control, at least it's stable, but methamphetamine
is another matter. In 2005 around 8% of drug
busts in China involved ice. Now they're nudging
40%. It's an exploding market and it's where
these police are concentrating much of their energy
"Loyal to the people! Dedicated to
our duties! Loyal to the people! Dedicated
to our duties!"
On board the long-distance
sleeping buses the checking is going ahead
in full swing. Bags are searched and documents
examined with plenty of questions. A tap on
the shoulder from a colleague... they've found
something.
"Where are you going?""To Kunming"."What
are you going to do there?""My boss asks me
to go there".
This woman is asked to produce
her ID but doesn't have one. She's a Burmese
citizen. A woman travelling with a small child
clearly doesn't fit the profile of those the
police have been homing in on. And yet she
is carrying methamphetamine."You
can see here somebody else has been caught
carrying drugs. They've come in from Burma
and they're hiding the drugs inside some sort
of... again it looks like a condom or something
like that, they've been hiding them underneath
the mattress of this bus. The police are now
asking them where they got this from and just
the details of where they intended to take
them". "Whose child is this?""He's mine"."How
old?""One to two years"."Do you have any more?""Nothing else".
The woman and child are taken off the
bus. She'll be questioned, but either way
normally in China, any run in with the law
means you're going down. "Can we have a look?"She
shows us the three packets of ice she was
attempting to deliver to the regional capital.
This seems to be the standard amount that
poor couriers are asked to take. "We're actually
going to try and ask her a couple of questions
to get translated through the local police here".
"Can you ask her why she did it? Is
it because of money, or why? Did somebody
make her do it?"Money, money". "Five thousand,
did you get it in the hand?""Not yet. When
I deliver it there, I get paid"."So a friend
has gotten her to do this. Obviously they're
poor people and someone's given them 5,000
yuan to bring these drugs across the border".
That's around 900 Australian dollars. "I'm just trying
to establish if lots of people from their
village actually bring drugs across the border.
It seems they do"."Has she done this before?"So
she's done this before herself. So she's successfully
brought drugs across the border before and
this is the second time she's done it.The
police say that pregnant women or women with
small children are favoured to act as drug
couriers. It's not only because they look
less suspicious. This woman tells the police
that she is still breastfeeding her child.
Under the Chinse system that means she won't
be sent to gaol - at least for the moment.
We're later told that she's to be sent back
to Myanmar until her child is of a certain
age, then apparently the Burmese police will
hand her back over to China to face trial
here. As for our young men pulled over earlier
by the police, they were also carrying a sword
and a large knife in their car but no drugs.
"Our duty is to check for the drugs but you're
carrying controlled knives. It's not necessary
to arrest you - you haven't hurt anyone. We're
just confiscating them"."They were given by
my friends as gifts". "We can't return them
to you. Those are the controlled knives"."If
you're really not giving them
back we will go then".
And with that, they're allowed to
go. Yet this man's life has come to a devastating
cross roads before our eyes. He is looking
at a minimum of 10 to 15 years in gaol. As
China's drug trade flourishes, there are many
like him running the gauntlet here, poor people
taking the quick money so others can reap
the profits - and try though the police might
to plug the holes, in their hearts they know
that the tide is well and truly coming in.
