Police in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality said it has smashed a cross-border drug ring and arrested 254 suspects along with 70 kg of drugs, after 15 months of investigation.
According to the police, the suspects used the Internet to recruit drug traffickers, who were forced to hide drugs in their bodies. Over 1,000 such "body traffickers" were recruited from 30 provinces and cities across China using false advertising such as casino security, truck drivers or salesmen.
The recruited were confined soon after they arrived in the drug ring's base in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, and transported to northern Myanmar to swallow drugs.
Those who were unwilling to cooperate were abused or even killed, according to the police. The drug ring was suspected of dozens of kidnapping, rape, extortion and murder cases.
Having collected enough evidence, the police launched multiple raids in Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan as well as northern Myanmar from June 2018 to January 2019. A total of 84 key members were returned to China from Myanmar in January.
