Customs officials in Lincang, a city in southwest China's Yunnan Province, seized 117.8 kilograms of opium on June 6 in the country's biggest opium smuggling bust, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Three traffickers were involved in the case; two escaped and the third was taken into custody.

The opium traffickers regularly shipped drugs across the border between China and Myanmar.

Officials said they received information on June 5 that a shipment would be passing through Lincang. A plan was hatched for customs officials to lie in wait for the traffickers just over the border from Myanmar.

At midnight on June 5, the three traffickers appeared with the opium. Policemen sprang on them but conditions were not ideal for a flawless arrest. It was dark, the jungle thick and the terrain difficult. Two of the traffickers escaped back into Myanmar.

"If we had more policemen on hand, or if we had better equipment, the two traffickers would not have escaped," said an official from Kunming customs who declined to be named.

Lincang customs has a force of only 30 police officers. In addition to routine border control work, these 30 police officers have to control the rampant drug trafficking in the area.

The 117.8 kilograms of opium were packaged in 34 small sacks. "In 2002, we cracked another trafficking case involving 107.5 kilograms of opium," said the official.

(China Daily June 14, 2005)