Authorities are cracking down on those who use the most vulnerable people in society to transport illegal substances. Zhang Yi reports.
Police have opened a new front in the war on drugs by targeting traffickers who recruit the disabled and other vulnerable people as couriers, or “mules”.
Drug gangs target these groups — people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, plus pregnant or lactating women — because Chinese law contains a number of clauses that allow them to avoid prison. That, plus the offer of “easy money”, is often enough for those from the poorest sections of society to run the risks associated with the trade.
Last year, more than 5,300 vulnerable people were detained while transporting narcotics, according to the latest annual report on the country’s drug situation.
Of those, 782 were foreign nationals, and a large number were from Myanmar, according to the report, released last month by the Office of National Narcotics Control Commission, China’s top anti-drug authority.
In August, a pregnant 18-year-old woman from Myanmar was caught with nearly 3 kilograms of methamphetamine stashed in 80 mooncakes, a traditional Chinese delicacy.
The mule, who had been hired to carry the narcotics from Myanmar to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, was caught as she was about to deliver the mooncakes to the buyer. In her confession, she said she was due to receive 5,000 yuan ($730) when the deal was closed.
In a similar case, a 16-yearold Myanmarese girl was caught at a bus station in Kunming with about 2.8 kg of meth concealed in two boxes of mooncakes.
Under China’s Criminal Procedure Law, the disabled, people with chronic illnesses or acute infectious diseases, and pregnant or lactating women, can file for bail prior to conviction, and later apply for medical parole that will allow them to serve their sentences outside prison.
Even if they are convicted and sentenced, they can avoid jail if they are physically unfit for imprisonment, according to Wei Jie, a criminal law specialist with the Jieqiang Law Firm in Beijing.
Parole regulations
“For example, the parole regulation, amended in 2014, allows people with acute or infectiousillnessestoapplyfor medical parole,” he said.
“Usually, they don’t have to serve their sentences in jail if they present a doctor’s note to the prison authorities saying that they have to receive inpatient treatment at a hospital.”
These offenders serve their sentences in their home communities, which are obliged to supervise them, and they are not allowed to leave their city of residence until the full sentence has been served.
These people rarely have the capacity for work and are not financially well-off, he said, which means they are easily tempted by the small amounts of money offered by drug dealers.
“They believe they have a higher chance of avoiding a police search in the first place. For instance, in some cases, drugs have been discovered stashed in prosthetic limbs to thwart body searches,” Wei said.
The report revealed a rising trend of foreign drug gangs using such people to transport narcotics. Many of those detained were carrying drugs from Myanamar into the southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou.
Rising demand