Heroin dealers sentenced to death

Source: Xinhua  |   2008-11-25  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

TAIWAN drug dealers Chien Chih-Cheng and Chen Ming-Hsiung were sentenced to death in the eastern province of Fujian last week, a local official said yesterday.

Thirteen people, including eight from Taiwan, were arrested in October on charges of trafficking more than 12 kilograms of heroin, the largest amount of heroin seized by Fujian police in the past three years, said an official of Zhangzhou Intermediate People's Court.

Two of the other 11 people convicted received death sentences with two-year reprieves, two were jailed for life, six for 15 years and one for 12 years, the official said.

Police told the court that the dealers bought 39 parcels of heroin from Burma in early September and sold four of them for 400,000 yuan (US$58,600) in Shenzhen. They planned to transport the remainder of the drugs to Taiwan, but were thwarted when a storm stranded the fishing boats in which they planned to travel.