3000 Police Raid Chinese Meth-Cooking Village in Crackdown

From NetEase NetEase:

Guangdong Police Crack Down on “No.1 [Drug-Producing] Village”, Seize Nearly 3 Tons of Methamphetamine

2013 December 29, police from multiple jurisdictions of Guangdong launched a joint operation to raid Lufeng City Boshe Village, the province’s “No.1 Village” heavily involved in the production of drugs, eliminating 18 mega meth-cooking and distributing crime organizations headed by a Lufeng drug kingpin, arresting 182 suspects, seizing nearly 3 tons of methamphetamine and 23 tons of meth-cooking raw materials. Sources of pictures: China News Agency, Shanwei City Residents Net.

Guangdong Province deployed thousands of police officers, police dogs and several helicopters in surrounding and capturing the drug dealers in Boshe Village and other villages in Lufeng City Jiaxi Town. In this drug-trafficking crackdown, a large batch of drugs was seized, as well as a large amount of cash and drug production equipment and supplies. Many people involved in the production of drugs were arrested.

Picture is of the Boshe Village, the “No.1 Village” heavily involved in meth-cooking.

Picture is of a meth-cooking den discovered by the police.

Picture is of an airborne helicopter on the alert.

Pictures are of a large number of armed police entering the village.

Picture is of items involved in the cooking of meth seized by the armed police.

Picture is of the large amount of methamphetamine seized by police.

Pictures are of the criminal suspects arrested by the police.

Picture is of the people involved in the crime being arrested.

Picture is of the equipment involved in meth-cooking.

Picture is of the seized drugs.

From NetEase:

3,000 Police Officers in Guangdong Siege Meth-Cooking Village By Sea, Land, and Air, Villagers Equipped with Grenades and AK47s

Summary: 2013 December 29, Guangdong police mobilized 3,000 fully armed police officers to “clean up” Boshe Village of Lufeng City, the “No.1 Village” of methamphetamine. As it is understood, 20% of the households in this village were involved in the production of meth. The village was full of luxury homes, and many villagers carried imitation firearms, including even AK47s, self-made grenades, crossbows, and other deadly weapons.

[…]

According to information [from the police], the manufacturing of meth in Lufeng is concentrated in the “Three Jia” area (Jiadong Town, Jiaxi Town, and Jiazi Town), with Boshe Village being the “most deeply poisoned village” among those involved in meth-cooking and distribution in the “Three Jia” area. The village covers an area of 0.54 square kilometers, with a perimeter of 3,300 meters. It has over 1,700 households with a total population of 14,000. There are 2,026 stand-alone buildings in the entire village, and none of them have a house number.

[…]

14 government officials served a protective umbrella, Boshe Village Secretary Cai Dongjia was the first to be captured

During the 2013 December 29 Shanwei City “Sound of Thunder Drug Raid” operation, 14 cadres of the Communist Party and government involved in the case were arrested, including the biggest target–Boshe Village Branch Party Secretary Cai Dongjia. In addition, driven by greed, the local low-level police has also been corrupted. According to a representative of the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department, the police chief and the police force of the local police station have also been arrested under suspicion of “providing protection” [for the criminal activities].

[…]

At the entrance to Boshe Village, there used to be a notice signed by the “Village Committee”: Dumping of meth-cooking waste strictly forbidden! On the empty areas and vacant housing lots of the village are piled heaps of garbage nearly 2 meters high, the stench unbearable. Narcotics police told reporters of this article that all of this garbage is produced from the cooking of meth, “you can tell from the sewage water seeping out”.

[…]

According to Qiu Wei, Political Commissar of [Guangdong] Provincial Public Security Narcotics Department: ”The over two thousand buildings in Boshe Village are in close proximity to each other, like an urban ghetto. Most of the buildings are single-storey, with a few of them being multi-storied. There were a dense amount of small alleys that the large vehicles couldn’t get through.” There were lookout posts both hidden and exposed, and there were also lookout posts along the main roads outside the village.

“[The criminals] had many associates within the local party and government organizations who would tip them off whenever there was any sign of trouble. Twice in the past when police tried large-scale raids of the village, they were met with road blocks, people hurling abuse, and violent resistance,” said Qiu Wei. As soon as the police entered the village, they’d be surrounded by the two to three hundred motorcycles in the village, with nail boards placed on the roads in the village, and rocks thrown from the top of buildings. Villagers would hold imitation firearms, even AK47s, homemade grenades, crossbows, and other deadly weapons.

“They might dump the hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid used in cooking meth from above. Although we came up with 6 measures for defending ourselves, the officers participating in the operation were still nervous,” Qiu Wei said.

Meth-cooking can also “transform and upgrade”

In the past, Lufeng used ephedra herb imported from other provinces to cook meth. Criminals purchased ephedra herb from places like Inner Mongolia and Anhui, and transported it into Lufeng in truckloads, with each truck able to carry more than 10 tons of it. After a series of procedures such as incineration and immersion, six to seven kilos of ephedrine could be extracted from one ton of ephedra herb, which can produce about 4 kilos of methamphetamine after further processing.

None of the pharmaceutical factories in Guangdong need to use the ephedra herb. Therefore, basically all of the ephedra herb purchased winded up in Lufeng. However, the cooks started to abandon the ephedra herb, “transforming and upgrading” [the meth cooking process], purchasing a chemical called bromide acetone from Fujian, using chemical synthesis to produce meth. What more, bromide acetone is not within a category of controlled substances. The 25 tons of meth-cooking raw material seized by Yunnan Police in 2013 June was all bromide acetone.

“The process for manufacturing methamphetamine is getting easier, each cycle shorter, the output greater, and the price cheaper.” According to Qiu Wei, the price of 1 kilogram of methamphetamine has dropped from several hundred thousand yuan in the past to 10 thousand yuan nowadays, and even deals at 7,000 yuan.

[…]

Comments from NetEase 1 & 2:

呀哑吖呸 [网易上海市网友]:

The local police only thought of cracking down on it after it had already gotten so big? Another year and it probably would have gone public [on the stock market]!!!

诗奴L [网易广东省深圳市宝安区网友]:

Who knows how long this has gone on before it was wiped out today. Is it because they’re overdue in paying their protection fee to the government officials?

呀哑吖呸 [网易上海市网友]:

Every household had a small building to live in. Could there have been a feeling of home living in houses built with black-hearted [dirty, immoral] money?

网易辽宁省大连市网友 ip：123.185.*.*:

3 tons! Just think of how many people would have been poisoned by this! I feel like the sentencing for drug trafficking, drug hiding, drug using, drug dealing, and drug manufacturing are too light these days.

网易广东省肇庆市手机网友 ip：113.95.*.*:

Places like Shanwei and Luchuan had become golden triangles for counterfeiting and drug manufacturing N years ago, and it is only recently that they’ve cracked down on them!

mboc [网易上海市网友]： (responding to above)

Uh, I’ve always heard that Dongguan was really messed up [lawless, corrupt], but now it’s a bit like “a small sorcerer in the presence of a great one” [it pales in comparison].

相关事务局 [网易广东省广州市网友]:

Only being cracked down on after becoming this fat. The Eastern Guangdong area basically all belongs to black society [organized crime, mafia, triad], and that is why the economic situation in eastern Guangdong is so behind.

清风泛舟 [网易广东省佛山市网友]:

The Guangdong version of The White Storm. Have Liu Qingyun and Gu Tianle finished filming the sequel…?

企盼英雄 [网易上海市嘉定区网友]:

You’d be better off not saying how this village head isn’t bad, having led the entire village of people in collectively becoming rich.

Comments from QQ:

★哥、全城焦点★^_^:

Take a look at what kind of characters the low-level village government cadres of China are? If China does not do something about the unhealthy trend of using money to become village officials, it’ll rot from its roots! All the bad people mentioned in this news should be executed by shooting without mercy. If this evil trend is not stopped, who knows what kind of criminals their next generation might become. It may even be that the next generation of the entire village will continue and rebuild this kind of business again.

蔠∮點♀:

I have the following questions: 1. Why was it able to develop to such a big scale? 2. Why did it become such a big scale? 3. Why did it get to such a big scale before something was done about it? 4. [How was it that] the officials of a village were able to protect such a narcotics manufacturing operation of this scale? 5. What will the villagers here do in the future? 6. Who should bear responsibility for this case?! I just want to say that my heart is filled with mixed feelings after reading this news!

风云2:

China’s village secretaries [officials] are the most niub [rich and unrestrained], yet the villagers are very poor. The [criminal] underworld controlling everything has already become a common phenomenon in China’s villages.

BIN LEE 宾:

Since ancient times there has been this saying: There is a thunder god in heaven, and there is a Lufeng on earth. The people of Lufeng have always dared to do certain things that are beyond the bounds of propriety/decency! This time the situation was serious, and they truly must not be let off lightly! Because drugs can destroy a nation!

陈志强:

Did everyone read it carefully? 20% of 15,000 villagers were cooking meth, which means 3,000 people. What’s fucking use is there in just blaming the village officials? The main problem is that there are too many scumbags in that village. They should all be sentenced to death, but so far only 100 of them have been arrested? I’d sure like to see what will happen next, to see how [the government is going] to deal with this.

梅子:

In fact, this is just one village that has been arrested, and many more are waiting. In my village, almost all the young people from every family are using drugs. Some even use drugs by playing “rock, paper, scissors”. Now we don’t even dare to go back. My parents cried over my little brothers every day, so my entire family ultimately had to move out of the village.

❤﹏佳音丶:

This kind of country-wrecking, people-ruining village and villagers, along with all the people who participate in drug-manufacturing and distributing, should all be executed by shooting. The hazards of drugs are too great, there must be a strict law to get them under control. Otherwise, it’d be like what some netizens have said, that in face of a giant profits, they’ll just go back into the same business once they come out.

黄非红:

There’s no way the people in the village can be reformed. The enormous profits has already stimulated their greedy nerves, and once they’ve completed their prison sentences, they’ll just go back to this profession.

大漠晨曦:

Slaughter the entire village! Just how many families has this one single village destroyed? Enter and the moment you see meth-cooking equipment in the house, immediately execute the people who live inside, and any who resist should be put to death on the spot!

梦幻海洋:

Only doing something after it has already gotten this big, the tragedy of China! Could a mere village official have this much ability to protect [such a large-scale illegal operation]? This should be looked into thoroughly. Who knows how may happy families have been destroyed [by these people], they must be severely punished!