21 officials involved in village’s massive drugs trade

Police and government officials were engaged in drug dealing in a village in Guangdong Province where 3 tons of crystal methamphetamine, or ice, was seized in recent raids.

Twenty-one Party and government officials were identified as being involved in the business in Boshe in the southern province’s Lufeng City.

Seven have been put under investigation, among them the head of Lufeng’s public security bureau anti-drug department, surnamed Guo, Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Guo is reported to have been helping Cai Dongjia, the village’s Party chief. As a key figure in the village’s drug business, Cai used his relations with police and government officials for protection over the past three years, during which the village provided a third of the nation’s crystal meth, a dangerous and addictive substance.

Cai would receive tip-offs from police and officials before previous raids, the paper said.

Local police were said to have been taking bribes and two officers had even used police cars to transport drugs, said Qiu Wei, a senior official with the provincial public security bureau’s anti-drug department.

Authorities deployed helicopters, speedboats and paramilitary police in a raid on the village on December 29.

Security forces surrounded and then 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, Guangdong’s police force said on its website.