China’s Ministry of Public Security announced Sunday that police had seized more than 300 kilograms of illegal drugs and arrested more than 12,000 people involved in production and trafficking through a network of online video applications and chat rooms, according to Xinhua News:
In March, police in the cities of Lanzhou and Xi’an in west China found some people were getting and selling drugs through chatting in online chatting room, which were usually inaccessible to outsiders.
New comers could only be allowed to enter the online chatting room after being introduced by “acquaintances” and performing drug-addiction through the online video, Liu said.
The MPS soon launched a nationwide battle to fight against online drug-related activities on Aug. 31, and started tightening the net to seize the suspects on Sept. 2.
Among the 12,125 arrested suspects, 66.2 percent are young people under 35 years old, and 2.6 percent are under 18, with the youngest being 14 years old, according to Liu.
China’s war against drugs also recently cut off a well-connected trafficking ring based in Guangxi and yielded the largest-ever drug bust in Hong Kong’s history.
