Three tons of crystal meth has been seized from a single Chinese village notorious for drug production, where one in five families is part of a grenade-wielding drug lab operation.
Helicopters, speedboats and paramilitary police were deployed to raid the southern village of Boshe in Lufeng City, where 182 suspects were arrested.
A reported 3,000-strong security force surrounded and entered the village where more than a fifth of the households were suspected to be involved in or linked to the production and trafficking of drugs, the Guangdong province police force said on its website.
Police and paramilitary forces from four cities were mobilized in Sunday's raid and arrested locals who allegedly worked for 18 large drug-making rings.
Boshe's villagers have resisted Chinese authorities for years, blockading the village entrance with motorcycles when word of a raid spread. The villagers would brandish replica AK-47s, lay nail boards on the road and hurl rocks and homemade grenades at officers, said the paper based in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.
The provincial police say the city of Lufeng, which Boshe is a part of, has become the source of a third of the country's total crystal meth supply in the last three years.
No one was harmed in the Sunday raid, a police statement said on Thursday.
The statement said: ‘The village has made a criminal drug production a “clan-based, industrialized operation with local protection”.’
‘The offenders have for a long time been brazenly committing crimes, avoiding investigations and even ganging up to violently oppose law enforcement.’
China routinely carries out operations targeting illicit drug rings but it is unusual for such wide-ranging law enforcement resources to be deployed against a single village all at once.
An aerial photo posted on the police website showed dozens of police vans parked in rows outside a walled village of densely built old houses with traditional-style peaked, tiled roofs.
Another photo showed a helicopter taking off and another one parked nearby. Speedboats were sent to prevent suspects from fleeing the coastal village by sea.
Local newspaper The Yangcheng Evening News reported that the raid involved 3,000 police officers who seized three tons of methamphetamine in the raid.
Photos showed paramilitary officers in camouflage uniforms and holding rifles stood over large boxes filled with large packets of what is presumably crystal meth.
The paper said police first captured the village party secretary who allegedly was protecting the drug operations from authorities. Other officials captured included the local police chief and other police officers.
Calls to police at the provincial and local levels rang unanswered on Friday.
The Boshe raid was part of ‘Operation Thunder,’ an on-going crackdown on illicit drugs in Guangdong that was launched in July and has resulted in the detention of 11,000 suspects and the seizure of eight tons of drugs.
Helicopters, speedboats and paramilitary police were deployed to raid the southern village of Boshe in Lufeng City, where 182 suspects were arrested.
A reported 3,000-strong security force surrounded and entered the village where more than a fifth of the households were suspected to be involved in or linked to the production and trafficking of drugs, the Guangdong province police force said on its website.
Police and paramilitary forces from four cities were mobilized in Sunday's raid and arrested locals who allegedly worked for 18 large drug-making rings.
Boshe's villagers have resisted Chinese authorities for years, blockading the village entrance with motorcycles when word of a raid spread. The villagers would brandish replica AK-47s, lay nail boards on the road and hurl rocks and homemade grenades at officers, said the paper based in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.
The provincial police say the city of Lufeng, which Boshe is a part of, has become the source of a third of the country's total crystal meth supply in the last three years.
No one was harmed in the Sunday raid, a police statement said on Thursday.
The statement said: ‘The village has made a criminal drug production a “clan-based, industrialized operation with local protection”.’
‘The offenders have for a long time been brazenly committing crimes, avoiding investigations and even ganging up to violently oppose law enforcement.’
China routinely carries out operations targeting illicit drug rings but it is unusual for such wide-ranging law enforcement resources to be deployed against a single village all at once.
An aerial photo posted on the police website showed dozens of police vans parked in rows outside a walled village of densely built old houses with traditional-style peaked, tiled roofs.
Another photo showed a helicopter taking off and another one parked nearby. Speedboats were sent to prevent suspects from fleeing the coastal village by sea.
Local newspaper The Yangcheng Evening News reported that the raid involved 3,000 police officers who seized three tons of methamphetamine in the raid.
Photos showed paramilitary officers in camouflage uniforms and holding rifles stood over large boxes filled with large packets of what is presumably crystal meth.
The paper said police first captured the village party secretary who allegedly was protecting the drug operations from authorities. Other officials captured included the local police chief and other police officers.
Calls to police at the provincial and local levels rang unanswered on Friday.
The Boshe raid was part of ‘Operation Thunder,’ an on-going crackdown on illicit drugs in Guangdong that was launched in July and has resulted in the detention of 11,000 suspects and the seizure of eight tons of drugs.
Source : DailyMail , ITN
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