Four African travelers suspected of trafficking heroin have been arrested in Shenzhen, a city in south China's Guangdong Province.

 

They will be indicted by Chinese procurators according to Chinese law, said sources with the Shenzhen Customs.

 

The first case came to light on December 3 when a traveler with a Liberian passport attempted to enter Chinese territory at Shenzhen Airport.

 

He was stopped by customs clearance officers at the airport. A scan showed that a number of round objects were hidden in his abdomen. They turned out to be high-purity heroin weighing one kilogram.

 

The other three cases occurred at the land checkpoint between Hong Kong and Luohu on December 12 and 13.

 

In the afternoon of December 12, a middle-aged man holding a Kenyan passport aroused suspicion and was stopped by customs clearance staff. He had also hidden high-purity heroin in his abdomen. He confessed during interrogation that he had been ordered to deliver the drug to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.

 

The customs clearance officers also found and confiscated 540-grams of high-purity heroin wrapped in plastic film and hidden in socks worn by a man from Ghana, and another 795-grams of heroin hidden inside the body of a woman with a Guinean passport the following day.

 

The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that penalties for heroin traffickers range from 15 years in prison to a life sentence or even execution, plus confiscation of property.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2006)