Rewards offered for capture of traffickers

Police in Lufeng, Guangdong province, offered rewards of 26 million yuan ($3.8 million) for the capture of 130 suspected fugitive drug traffickers.

An informant could be paid as much as 200,000 yuan for tipping off police, a statement released by Lufeng city bureau of public security said.

"The statement, which was published on the bureau's websites and local media over the weekend indicates the police have increased their efforts to pursue and capture the suspected drug traffickers, who are now on the run," a local police officer, who did not want to be named, said on Monday.

He urged the suspects to surrender themselves to the police and get a more lenient punishment.

It is the largest reward posted so far for the capture of the suspects in Guangdong.

The suspected traffickers include nine women. Twenty of them were born in the 1990s, with the youngest being Cai Junbiao, born on Oct 16, 1995. Cai, from Boshe village in Lufeng's Jiaxi township, is suspected of being involved in producing, storing and trafficking drugs.

The oldest suspect on the wanted list is Cai Han, born in July 1945 and also from Boshe village. Cai Han is suspected of similar crimes.

The pair, together with other suspects, escaped when police raided the coastal village at the end of 2013. Authorities seized 3 metric tons of methamphetamine plus 23 tons of raw materials, and detained 182 suspects in the raid.

Twenty-one of the fugitives are natives of Boshe village. The notorious village was once a major production base of methamphetamine, commonly known as "ice".

A police officer from the Guangdong Department of Public Security reiterated on Monday that the Guangdong police have a zero-tolerance policy toward illicit drugs and related crimes in the province and promised more campaigns.

The southern province, which borders Hong Kong and Macao, has been on the front line of China's war against illicit drugs for decades. Police across Guangdong seized 16.4 metric tons of drugs in 2017, the most by any province, region or municipality on the mainland. The police seized more than 5.4 metric tons of drugs in the first five months of this year.