Seven drug traffickers were sentenced to death and another to death with reprieve by Wuxi Municipal Intermediate People's Court in east China's Jiangsu Province on Friday.

This is the largest drug trafficking case cracked in the province, according to police.

The eight-member ring trafficked about 20 kilograms of drugs in three cities, Chongqing, Shanghai and Wuxi, and controlled about 60 percent of the drugs circulating in Wuxi.

Forty-year-old Lian Yongming, head of the ring, started trafficking drugs in 1995, and had been imprisoned for about two years. Most of the ring members have criminal records.

Police cracked the ring after one year and eight months of investigation.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2005)