It has been announced that, last year, the Armed Police Frontier Defense Force cracked 1,236 cases of illegal emigration involving 2,849 stowaways and 452 "snakeheads" (people smugglers).

They also dealt with 2,848 cases of smuggling of goods with a total value of 230 million yuan (US$27.79 million).

According to a meeting of the defense force's Party Committee, cooperation with neighboring countries has been formalized and helped make a concentrated effort against crimes involving guns and drugs.

In 2004, they uncovered 134 cases involving guns and confiscated 1,009 firearms. They also resolved 3,447 drug-related cases and captured 4,344 suspects and over 3,667 kilograms of drugs.

In all, 9,782 criminal cases were handled and 619 suspects who were listed as wanted on the Internet seized, as well as 24,053 other criminal cases.

On May 11, with help from Shanghai and Jiangsu police, frontier police from Fuzhou, Fujian Province solved a major interprovincial drug producing and trafficking case, arresting 17 suspects and confiscating 17,224 grams of ketamine and over 120,000 injecting vials of ketamine hydrochloride.

Drugs were the main focus for Yunnan's frontier police: they cracked 3,219 drug-related cases, captured 3,906 suspects and confiscated 3,359 kilograms of drugs and 7.7 tons of chemicals used to manufacture them.

In recent years, frontier police have strengthened work against illegal emigration by issuing wanted circulars on the Internet and offering rewards for the capture of "snakeheads." Over 202 people who had organized illegal emigration were sentenced to imprisonment last year.

Breakthroughs were also made in international cooperation over the management of marine boundaries. Two agreements with Vietnam came into effect in 2004, resulting in patrols and supervision along China's first marine border in the Beibu Gulf.

(China.org.cn by Wu Nanlan January 31, 2004)