Local police in east China's Jiangxi Province have detained three suspects who are accused of using the Internet to sell state-controlled psychotropic medicines overseas, local sources said Monday.
Acting on tips, Nanchang's anti-drug police raided a flat rented by the trio in the city's new technology development zone in late April.
Police arrested two men and a woman and seized almost six kg of 32 different stimulants along with their car and three computers.
The police identified the suspects only by their surnames: Hu, Liu, and Lin, all natives of Jiangxi Province.
Police say Hu began to purchase the state controlled stimulants from a number of pharmaceutical factories in Jiangsu and Zhejiang in January 2005. He placed ads and used the Internet to conduct business with overseas customers. He mailed his products to clients in a dozen foreign countries including the United States, Canada, Britain, France and Italy.
Both Liu and Lin are accused of using the same method to traffic the stimulants.
The police did not reveal how much money was involved in the transactions.
The case is under further investigation.
One of the drugs the suspects sold was Modafini, which was originally developed to treat narcolepsy and is used as a memory-improving and mood-brightening psycho stimulant. It is listed in China as a first-class psycho medicine to be controlled by the state.
(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2007)