Foreign drug ring broken up in Beijing

Over 30 arrested, including students and claimed refugees

A drug ring run by foreign residents of Beijing has been curtailed after over 30 dealers in possession of nearly 800 grams of illegal drugs were arrested in the last three months, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau announced Tuesday.

The Beijing police launched two operations since the campaign began on February 26 targeting foreign drug dealers in the city.

The traffickers imported drugs such as marijuana, methamphetamine (commonly known as "ice'') and MDMA from southern China and mainly sold them in Dongba and Sanlitun in the Chaoyang district of Beijing.

In the latest operation during May 15 and May 25, the officers rounded up more than 10 foreign offenders and confiscated 630 grams of various drugs near the Beijing Workers' Gymnasium. A follow up operation in March resulted in the capture of 10 other offenders and the confiscation of 160 grams of different drugs in the Sanlitun area.

The Sanlitun area, which is favored by foreigners because of its clusters of bars and shops, has long been plagued by drug dealers.

Some of these drug dealers came to China as university exchange students, while others hold refugee travel documents and make their living selling drugs, the Beijing Times reported.

They have a fixed group of customers, consisting of both other foreigners and locals.

Since economic reform began in the 1970s, the growing number of foreign visitors has also meant increasing criminal activities among foreigners, including drug trafficking, prostitution and theft, a criminal expert who refused to be identified told the Global Times.

China has seen soaring numbers of drug abusers in the past decade, from 70,000 in 1999 to nearly 2 million in 2012, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

These foreign offenders will face the same penalty as Chinese nationals who have committed the same crime, depending on the types and amounts of drugs they traded, Qu Xinjiu, dean of the Criminal Justice School at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.

Qu predicted the case will be passed directly to the intermediate people's court for hearings because foreign offenders are involved.

According to China's criminal law, trading over 50 grams of methamphetamine could mean the death penalty.

Judges are more careful when sentencing foreign criminals, Sun Zhongwei, a former drug fighting policeman turned lawyer, told the Global Times.

Among a group of Myanmar citizens that Sun defended in a drug case about five years ago, only one was given a death sentence for trading over 1,000 grams of methamphetamine in Yunnan.

However, the Chinese government has been getting stricter in recent years. In 2013, a female Filipino drug dealer was executed despite pleas from the Philippine president.