Totalling 16 million yuan (US$1.9 million), this is the largest caffeine trafficking case seen by Chinese police, said sources with the National Narcotic Control Commission, China's top anti-drug authority.

Drug users take caffeine to experience an altered state of mind as it stimulates the central nervous system. Pure caffeine is listed as a highly controlled narcotic in China.

On April 13, railway police in Qiqihar, the second largest city in Heilongjiang, received information that somebody had been shipping a large quantity of caffeine disguised as "additives" using trains, the Heilongjiang Daily reported.

After carefully combing tens of thousands of freight records, police found that more than 20 tons of "additives" had been transported to Luohe in Central China's Henan Province and Baotou in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region over several years.

Gao Yongquan, head of Harbin Railway Bureau of Public Security, ordered police to launch a campaign to track the smugglers down.

On May 18, two large bundles of goods tagged "additives," destined for Baotou, were intercepted by plainclothes police at Qiqihar Railway Station. The goods turned out to be high-purity caffeine.

Railway police immediately worked to arrest 52-year-old Sun Weimin, one of the major drug dealers in the case, who had been involved in the illegal trade of more than 10 tons of caffeine since 1983.

Sun illegally purchased caffeine from a local pharmacy several times, police said. He told police that he has received a total of 1 million yuan (US$120,000) in profits.

Officials say retail loopholes and the disorganized field of psycho-medicine products have led to the prevalence of illegal caffeine sales. The case sounded the alarm for medical supervision departments to plug up loopholes in medicine administration.

(China Daily June 13, 2002)