Drug gang gets severe punishment
By Zheng Caixiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-10-12 14:10

GUANGZHOU: The first defendant in the world's largest methamphetamine case was sentenced to death in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, on Sunday.

Zhang Qisheng was convicted of selling and trafficking more than 200 kilograms of methamphetamine, a drug commonly known as "ice."

Another five key members of Zhang's gang that had produced 12.36 tons of "ice" received sentences ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment.

Suspects offering information leading to the arrest of runaway gang members and those that surrendered their ill-gotten gains to the authorities received shorter sentences, according to an official from the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court which passed the judgement.

A total of 10 members of the gang were punished.

Zhang Shaoxian, Zhang Qisheng's wife, was the only woman defendant.

The official said his court would continue to seriously punish drug producers and traffickers in a bid to bring drug-related crimes under control in the southern province.

The official, who wished to remain anonymous, told China Daily that the severe punishment meted out to Zhang Qisheng and his accomplices would certainly help deter others from committing such crimes.

Zhang Qisheng has decided to appeal to a higher court.

The gang manufactured more than 12.36 tons of pure "ice" drug between January and October in 1999. The amount of "ice" that the gang had produced over a period of 10 months almost equalled the total amount of "ice" drug produced globally in 1998.

The drugs were produced in an chemical factory in Yinchuan of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. They were seized by Guangdong police after they were transported there.

And 11.08 tons of "ice" were seized in a warehouse in Guangzhou on November 4, 1999, while another 1.28 tons were seized in Puning, a city in eastern Guangdong, on November 18 of the same year.

It is, so far, the biggest drug-related case in the country since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The drugs were believed to have been transported to Guangdong in eight trucks after they were manufactured in Yinchuan.

Zhang Qisheng, the leader of the drug gang, escaped to Thailand via using a fake Chinese passport, while others also fled to other provinces and regions.

The Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security immediately established a task force to handle the case and try to seek both international and domestic co-operation to help capture the runaway suspects.

Zhang Qisheng was arrested by Thai police in the Southeast Asian nation in October 2000. Zhang was later sentenced to 18 months in jail in Thailand because he used a fake passport to enter Thailand. Zhang never committed drug-related crimes in Thailand.

With the help of Interpol China, Zhang was repatriated in June 2002 after he completed his jail term in Thailand.

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