Chinese police have smashed a cross-border drug trafficking gang with 17 members, the Zhengzhou public security authority said on Friday.

Police have seized 5.2 kilograms of ketamine and ice worth 2.7 million yuan (395,118 US dollars). They caught Guo Lei, 45, the first suspect, with 22,000 ice pills on the K338 train from Kunming to Zhengzhou on Dec. 16, said a Zhengzhou Railway Police Bureau official.

The police caught another 15 suspects within 28 days in central China's Hubei Province, southwest China's Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, the police said.

Wu Hanju, 53, the female gang leader from Hubei, was handed to the Chinese police by their Myanmar counterparts on Jan. 8. the police said.

Wu confessed that she bought an ice pill at the price of eight yuan in Myanmar and sold it in the mainland for 80 to 100 yuan.

Wu's son was sentenced to 18 years in jail for drug trafficking in 2008.

The police arrested eight of the 17 suspects on Jan. 20 and they are still under interrogation.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2009)