City offers 26m yuan in rewards to find 130 drug suspects

More than 200 calls inundated a police hotline at the weekend after a drug-crusading South China city offered 200,000 yuan ($29,000) to tipsters whose information might lead to the capture of its 130 mostwanted suspects.

Some 130 photos, names and national identity card numbers, plus briefings on each case, were released Saturday in an article on the official WeChat account of the Lufeng public security bureau.

The rewards were raised from 30,000 to 200,000 yuan to help round up remaining suspects, a Lufeng officer who took calls told the Global Times.

The names on the wanted list have plunged from 255 to 130, said the officer, who refused to give his name.

Whistle-blowers would be handled in the strictest confidence, the article said.

The whistle-blower reward is the latest high-profile move by the Guangdong Province city that made nationwide headlines for open trials of drug dealers at a sports stadium.

In December, suspects were tried and convicted in front of thousands at a sports stadium for murder and drug dealing.

Death sentences should not be held in public, according to China’s Criminal Procedure Law. They should be announced in public after review and approval by China’s top court, the Supreme People’s Court.

Lufeng, with a population of 2 million, was listed in 2011 as a major area in the fight against drug crime by the National Narcotics Control Commission, the Guangzhou-based Nandu Daily reported. More than 10,000 people including Communist Party officials and university anti-drug volunteers attended an event in Lufeng on Wednesday to combat drug crime.

Lufeng Party chief Wu Yumin said at the Wednesday event the city would “completely clear up drug crimes” within three years, according to a separate article by the police bureau.