1500 POUNDS OF HEROIN SEIZED IN CHINA

BEIJING -- Twelve people from Hong Kong have been detained after
China's biggest heroin seizure on record, police said Tuesday,
highlighting the growing role of Hong Kong traffickers in the Chinese
drug trade.

The Hong Kong suspects were among 21 picked up after police seized
nearly 1,500 pounds of heroin in November in the southwestern province
of Yunnan, said Sun Dahong, deputy director of the provincial police.

The heroin was found in a joint raid by Chinese and Myanmar police,
the biggest seizure since a deal for cooperation against drug
trafficking was signed in August by China and Laos, Thailand and
Myanmar -- the three countries that make up the heroin-producing
"Golden Triangle."

People from Hong Kong have been implicated in a growing number of
Chinese drug cases. But the Yunnan seizure is a leap in the size and
reach of Chinese trafficking involving suspects from Hong Kong.

Yunnan is about 700 miles west of Hong Kong on China's border with the
Golden Triangle region.

In a separate case, Sun said police have killed a Chinese gang leader
accused of smuggling 1,100 pounds of heroin into Yunnan.

Liu Ming, 43, was killed Jan. 28 in a gunfight during a joint
Chinese-Myanmar raid, Sun said. He wouldn't give any details, but said
a search of Liu's home turned up machine guns.

Liu was regarded as a leader of the "Golden Triangle" drug trade and
had been smuggling heroin since 1993, Sun said.

China's drug trade boomed in the 1990s as the country relaxed social
controls and eased entry at its borders to encourage economic growth.

Anti-drug officials say Yunnan is the main entry point for heroin
bound for Chinese markets or for re-export to other countries.

The heroin seized Nov. 8 in Yunnan was found in a shipment of timber
from Myanmar, Sun said by telephone from Kunming, the capital of
Yunnan. He said the heroin was bound for Guangdong, a prosperous
province that borders Hong Kong.

Police did not say how many addicts the heroin seized in November
would have served. In comparison, American customs agents confiscated
3,622 pounds of heroin at the U.S. border in all of 2001. China
releases few statistics on the drug trade. Beijing said that there
were 745,000 known heroin users throughout the country as of the end
of last year.

Hong Kong police went to Yunnan last month to question the suspects, a
spokeswoman for the territory's police told the South China Morning
Post newspaper.

The state-run China News Service identified one Hong Kong detainee as
Lam Yip-shing. Hong Kong police were not immediately available for
comment, and Sun didn't give any details about the other suspects.

Last month, three Hong Kong men were sentenced to death in Guangdong
for smuggling 400 pounds of heroin.

Hong Kong traffickers also have a place in China's growing trade in
methamphetamine. Six people were sentenced to death in December in
Guangdong on charges of trafficking 31 tons of the drug.