Four suspects were caught after 269.7 kilograms of heroin were found hidden in beehives on a truck in Dai-Va Autonomous County of Gengma in southwest China's Yunnan Province, the provincial public security department announced Wednesday.

Local police were tipped off on Feb. 29 that a gang was planning to traffic drugs from Myanmar into the province through Gengma so they set up a special panel to prevent the traffickers.

At 3:30 a.m. on April 4, the police found 269.7 kilograms of heroin, the largest quantity of drugs that has been seized so far this year in the country, in 63 beehives when examining a truck at Mengding Town in the county and arrested two suspects at the site. Another two suspects were captured in Yunxian County and Kunming, the province's capital later that day.

All the four suspects are from east China's Zhejiang Province and further investigations are underway, according to the department.

A neighbor of the Golden Triangle, a drug production area between Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, Yunnan, a province with over 4,000 kilometers of border line, easily falls victim to drug dealing and has been designated by Chinese authorities as a target area for clamping down on the influx of drugs.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2004)