Taiwan drug dealers Chien Chih-Cheng and Chen Ming-Hsiung were sentenced to death in the eastern province of Fujian last week, a local official said on Monday.

Thirteen people, including eight from Taiwan, were arrested in October on charges of trafficking more than 12 kilograms of heroin, the largest amount of heroin seized by Fujian police in the last three years, said an official of Zhangzhou Intermediate People's Court.

Two of the other 11 people convicted received death sentences with two-year reprieves, two were jailed for life, six for 15 years and one for 12 years, the official said.

The official would give no other details of the defendants, saying their cases were still eligible for appeal.

Police told the court that the dealers bought 39 parcels of heroin from Burma in early September and sold four of them for 400,000 yuan (60,000 U.S. dollars) in Shenzhen.

They planned to transport the remainder of the drugs to Taiwan, but their plans were scuppered when a storm stranded the fish boats in which they planned to travel in Zhangzhou City, police said.

Police apprehended the 13 in Fujian and neighbouring Guangdong Province.

(Xinhua News Agency November 24, 2008)