Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province, which borders the notorious "Golden Triangle", said on Wednesday they recently arrested a suspected Myanmar drug trafficker and seized 70.72 kg of heroin.

Yunnan frontier police said they received a tip-off last Wednesday saying a large amounts of drugs would be smuggled across the border with Myanmar.

On Saturday night, they arrested a Myanmar national leading a mule loaded with 104 bags of heroin that weighed 70.72 kg near Chashanjiao Village, Zhenkang County that borders Myanmar.

The police didn't release any further details of the case.

Yunnan is a major route for drugs smugglers of the "Golden Triangle", which lies along the Mekong River in Laos, Myanmar and northern Thailand and is one of the world's most productive poppy growing regions.

The frontier police in Yunnan announced early this month they had arrested 3,764 suspected drug traffickers and seized 1,429 kg of heroin, 763 kg of methamphetamine, or "ice", and 866 kg of opium this year.

Last year, Yunnan police seized more than four tons of drugs and arrested 4,600 suspected drug dealers in the region.

In 2005, Chinese police nationwide seized 6.9 tons of heroin and 5.5 tons of "ice".

(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2006)