Police cracking down on drugs
The number of drug cases Shanghai police handed over to the prosecutors last year was up 13.8 percent from the previous year, with the number of suspects up 20.8 percent, police said on Monday.
New synthetic drugs such as 5-Methoxytryptamine and alprazolam accounted for 68.8 percent of last year's seizures.
Synthetic drugs including methamphetamine accounted for 83.7 percent of all drugs seized, while the percentage of heroin and marijuana dropped from the previous year, police said.
A total of 97.7 percent of the drugs seized in Shanghai last year was brought in from other parts of the country.
Besides 5-Methoxytryptamine, psychedelic tryptamine made into sex vibrators, the other major types of new synthetic drugs last year were flunitrazepam and methylphenidate. All of them are controlled substances in China.
Flunitrazepam is usually prescribed by doctors for insomnia, but it can cause highs if ingested with alcohol. Methylphenidate, most frequently in the form of medicines such as Ritalin, Adderall and Modafinil, treats hyperactivity.
Flunitrazepam tablets seized by police
Methylphenidate tablets seized by police
Police warn that the abuse of these drugs can damage people’s mental and physical health.
Wang Qun, an official of the drug combating department of the police, said the flunitrazepam abused in the drug cases is mainly brought in by people or mailed into China from Japan, while methylphenidate mainly origins from India.
“We have been cooperating with the Customs to step up checks on people and mail bags from the key countries in drug traffic,” he said.
Drugs in parcels
Shanghai police said they solved three drug cases involving 5-Methoxytryptamine and caught 90 suspects with about 80 people taking the drug punished.
In one of the cases, eight suspects are now facing the charges of producing and selling the drug, police said.
Police started their investigation in April last year with a clue that the drug was being sold on the Internet.
The drug was allegedly produced in a fertilizer factory in Baoding city, Hebei Province, by a man surnamed Yang, and a man surnamed Qi who is based in Huludao city, Liaoning Province, was in charge of delivering the drugs to buyers in parcels.
On September 11, police found that about 30 kilograms of the liquid drug, in 34 boxes, were being delivered to Tianjin city, Zhengzhou city in Henan Province, Huainan city in Anhui Province, Liaocheng city in Shandong Province, Yiwu city in Zhejiang Province and Jinzhou city in Liaoning Province.
Qi was caught the next day with about 60 kilograms of the drug, in 19,800 potions, seized from him, and all of the delivered boxes of the drug were recovered.
Within the next six days, all of the other suspects were caught from Baoding and Shenzhen city in Guangdong Province, and from the drug den in Baoding, police seized 200 kilograms of the drug with 5-Methoxytryptamine and 45 kilograms of the “second-generation” of the drug with barbital and phenobarbital, together with 1,000 kilograms of ingredients and chemicals.
Police said the drug was produced in an indoor space of about 50 square meters with a “full set” of drug producing appliances.
The factory in Baoding where the drugs were produced
Shanghai police raid the factory in September last year
Police of Huangpu District caught eight dealers of flunitrazepam drugs in June and July last year.
Police started their investigation in May when they discovered that a few people in Shanghai previously involved in drug cases were selling the drug over the Internet, and the major suspect of the drug dealing network which spans several provinces is a man surnamed Chen based in Yinchuan city, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Chen was caught on July 24 with about 107 grams of the drug seized from him, police said.
In April this year, Shanghai police caught a drug dealing suspect from Shanxi Province who allegedly sold methylphenidate drugs and seized 200 pills of the drugs at his home.
Since April this year, police of Huangpu District have solved four crimes involving this kind of drugs, caught five suspect and seized 15 Ritalin tablets and 200 Armodafinil tablets.
Police said the drugs are often sold through WeChat stores and delivered through parcel delivery services which are less strict in checking contents of the delivered parcels and requiring real names of deliverers.
