Chapter 12 2000 The world's largest methamphetamine production and trafficking case

Between March and April 2000, the Philippine police seized a batch of about 300 kilograms of methamphetamine and confirmed that it was smuggled from mainland China.The information was quickly fed back to China, which immediately aroused the great attention of the National Anti-drug Center of the Ministry of Public Security of our country, and quickly set up task forces in many provinces and cities. Methamphetamine, scientifically known as methamphetamine, is called "ice" by drug traffickers and addicts because of its pure white crystal appearance, and "ice" because of its severe toxicity.Meth is far more harmful to users and society than heroin.Meth is a kind of psychotropic drug. After ingestion, the energy of the human body will be overdrawn, which will cause great damage to internal organs.Combining meth with heroin can be addictive once, and it is more difficult to quit.Because methamphetamine not only has a strong excitatory effect, but also causes certain hallucinations and sexual impulses, resulting in out-of-control behaviors, it is commonly known as "ecstasy", "happy pills", "Jingle pills", "ecstasy", "ecstasy", "crazy pills". pills”, “rape pills”, etc.

The direct raw material of methamphetamine is ephedrine (ephedrine). Natural ephedrine is extracted from ephedra plants, and these plants are wild. Ephedra trees also grow in Hainan Province. Areas from 43 degrees to 46 degrees and 47 degrees north latitude are most suitable for the growth of ephedra plants, so China's Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and other places are rich in such plants.Since the 1990s, China has strictly controlled the flow of ephedrine into illegal channels, and adopted a designated system for the purchase of ephedra grass and the production of ephedrine.But ephedra plants are different from opium poppy and marijuana after all. As long as the latter two are artificially planted, the law can punish the growers. Relatively speaking, they are easier to control than ephedra plants.

For methamphetamine, which is called "kitchen medicine (that is, you can make it in the kitchen)" by professionals, technology and capital do not pose real pressure, and China has become an important victim of manufacturing technology transfer. The main reason is: China There are extremely rich ephedrine resources.It is precisely this that many drug dealers who come across the border take a fancy to. Not long after the task force was established, the Hong Kong police informed the Ministry of Public Security that they had noticed the activities of a cross-provincial methamphetamine trafficking group in Hong Kong since 1999.They have been tracking the group, and secretly investigated the background of the big drug lords and the economic situation of the criminal group in Hong Kong, including their bank accounts and the properties they purchased.They have not acted hastily because they have no specific criminal evidence.

Based on the clues provided by the Hong Kong police, the Shenzhen police task force immediately began a rigorous investigation and collection of evidence against the Zhuang Chucheng ice drug trafficking group headed by the nickname "Huadi". After investigation, the crimes of Zhuang Chucheng's methamphetamine group gradually surfaced.The criminal methods of this group are very covert. First, they officially registered chemical factories in Shenzhen, Hubei and other places in the name of foreign-invested enterprises, and then secretly obtained ephedrine, the raw material for the production of methamphetamine, through some research institutes and chemical factories. recipes, to manufacture crystal meth under the cover of a legal "cloak".

On July 29, 2000, after careful planning, the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau arrested 14 criminal suspects including Zhuang Chucheng.The police seized a total of 17 tons of methamphetamine worth about HK$5.6 billion in drug manufacturing factories, drug storage warehouses and the residence of criminal suspects. In 1999, the total amount of methamphetamine seized globally was only 16 tons.According to estimates by Hong Kong's anti-drug agency, this batch of methamphetamine is enough for "addicts" in Hong Kong to take it for about 200 years.Later, good news came from Hubei, where two methamphetamine manufacturing bases were successfully destroyed by the police.

At the end of 1995, Zhuang Chucheng began to plan to manufacture methamphetamine for profit. In 1996, through Wu Qichang, Zhuang Chucheng met Li Xuelan, a 32-year-old pharmaceutical engineer of Nanning Pharmaceutical Factory, and Lin Qitong, a 63-year-old chief pharmaceutical engineer of Nanning Pharmaceutical Factory.In fact, as early as October 1995, Lin Qitong began to manufacture amphetamines under the commission of Chen, a fellow in Fujian in his 20s.At that time, Lin Qitong felt that he was old and frail, and he might not be able to do it alone, so he called his young and promising subordinate Li Xuelan to jointly undertake the task.

Amphetamine is a state-controlled drug and must be purchased with a certificate.Lin and Li, the two pharmaceutical experts, were very clear about the visitor's intentions, and agreed to do their best with one voice. After New Year's Day in 1996, according to the blueprint designed by "Mr. Lin", "Xiao Li" devoted himself and tried his best to develop the first batch of synthetic methamphetamine of about 30 grams. In April 1996, Zhuang, Wu and others were delighted to hear the good news, and rushed to Nanning to check and accept it. After burning "ice" in the room of a guest house where they stayed, they pointed out that the effect was acceptable, but not pure enough.Lin and Li summed up their experience and got on the horse again. They were done. They brought new methamphetamine products to Guangzhou in early May, and they passed the appraisal by Zhuang, Wu and others.

Zhuang and Wu proposed to expand the scale of production, and gave 170,000 yuan to Lin and Li as funds.Lin then rented the Nanning Changgangling Veterinary Medicine Factory building as a production workshop, and Li purchased the equipment and raw materials for making methamphetamine.In August of the same year, Lin and Li together with Wu Qichang, Li Sheng, Li Jian and others produced a total of 5 kilograms of methamphetamine in the Changgangling Veterinary Medicine Factory by chemical synthesis, which was transported by Li Sheng to Guangzhou and handed over to Zhuang Chucheng for sale. One day in June 1996, Zhuang and Wu entertained Lin Qitong and Li Xuelan in a private room of a hotel in Nanning.During the meeting, Wu asked Lin for advice on further technical points.Lin may be good at being a teacher, so he taught it endlessly.Zhuang Da was displeased and full of resentment.Seeing that Lin was leaking secrets and passing on a unique trick, Li angrily scolded Lin for not talking nonsense.In the end, it was Zhuang who smoothed things over: "Boss Lin calm down, even if you take a rest, you have worked hard, and everything we have is your share."

Since then, Lin and Li have ended their "honeymoon period" and become like passers-by.Seeing that Lin Qi and Tong Lian were old and useless, Zhuang wholeheartedly turned to Li's military adviser and "united" with the army again. He successively invested nearly 1 million Hong Kong dollars to win Li tightly.Li Lede made his fortune alone, and took over a huge sum of money to continue to make "ice" raw materials for them. As farewell to Lin Qitong, Li Xuelan simply left Nanning due to the huge temptation of Zhuang, Wu and other drug lords' huge sums of money. While ordering phenylacetic acid and other raw materials through her university classmates in Shanghai, she returned to her hometown Yulin City, contacted her middle school classmates, and rented a An old house in Yangqiao Village, Fujin Town, on the outskirts of the city.In Yangqiao Village, Li Xuelan is like a small boss, recruiting employees, setting up pots and stoves, and making a lot of money by making "ice" raw materials.Once, an accident occurred while making "ice" raw materials, and all seven employees were poisoned. Fortunately, it was mild, and they were quickly cured after being sent to a nearby clinic.Li himself was splashed on the left side of his cheek while stirring hot juice, and it took several months for the scar to heal.

The scars healed did not forget the pain. Li Xuelan was afraid of exposing the drug nest after being poisoned, so she decided to shoot a gun to change the place. After asking the drug lords for a relocation fee of 70,000 Hong Kong dollars, she moved the "ice" raw material factory in December 1996. Moved to the Pier Village in Fujin Town, and started anew. From August 1996 to May 1997, Li Xuelan manufactured a total of 500 kilograms of methamphetamine in Nanning and Yulin.At the same time, Zhuang Chucheng and Chen Wenyi instigated Wu Qichang, Li Sheng, Li Jian, Qiu Xiuzhong and others to make 390 kg of liquid methamphetamine produced in Guangxi into 390 kilograms of solid methamphetamine at Baojia Printing Factory in Xinxu Town, Huizhou. It was transported four times to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places and handed over to Zhuang Chucheng for sale.

In May 1997, Li saw the relevant laws and regulations promulgated by the state in the newspaper, which listed "ice" and heroin as drugs involved in crimes.Only then did he suddenly realize, so he didn't dare to touch the "ice". Seeing that Li Xuelan had made up his mind to wash his hands, Zhuang Chucheng had no choice.So in July of the same year, Zhuang Chucheng, Chen Wenyi, Wu Qichang and others went to Guangxi and asked Li Xuelan for a complete set of formula and production process of chemically synthesized methamphetamine at Fuxing Hotel in Nanning City.Later, Zhuang personally brought the money and transferred to Shanghai together with Chen Wenyi, Wu Qichang and others. Through Lin Qitong's introduction, he purchased phenylacetone, methylamine and other raw materials for drug production from Fan Qingyun, an employee of Shanghai Lianyi Pharmaceutical Machinery Company, and shipped them to Daya Bay, Huiyang, Guangdong. Manufacturing methamphetamine in Aotou Township and at home. In July 1998, Zhuang taught Qiu He the technology of chemically synthesizing methamphetamine, and funded Qiu He to manufacture methamphetamine in Yuandong Village, Xinxu Town, Huizhou.As of April 1999, Qiu produced a total of 700 kilograms of solid methamphetamine. In order to further increase the production of methamphetamine, in 1999, Zhuang Chucheng decided to open a liquid methamphetamine processing plant in Wuhan, and chose Huang Yancheng, a Wuhan native, to preside over it. Huang Yancheng was a worker at the Wuhan Glass Instrument Factory. In 1988, he stopped working without pay and opened a chemical shop on Minquan Road. At the end of 1998, Zhuang Chucheng's accomplice Zeng Yungui came to Han to buy phenylacetone, a raw material for drug production, and the two met. In March 1999, Zeng Yungui asked Huang Yancheng to act as an agent of a drug processing factory in Han for a price of 10,000 yuan per month.Huang Yancheng thought it was "profitable and profitable", so he agreed immediately. In March 1999, Huang Yancheng approached Wuhan Dyestuff Factory and proposed to rent a workshop to produce medicines.Wuhan Dye Factory is a very poor enterprise with more than 2,000 employees, and the burden is heavy. Therefore, the factory wants to use workshop rent to support them. In addition, Huang Yancheng speaks Wuhan dialect, lives in seclusion, and has a business license from Wuhan. All documents are available. There is also a pharmacy on Sanmin Road.Therefore, it quickly won the trust of the person in charge of Wuhan Dye Factory. In July, the two parties signed a one-year lease contract, renting 400 square meters of three workshops in the factory at a price of 4,000 yuan per month. On April 15, Zeng Yungui inspected the factory building and gave Huang 300,000 yuan.Huang used the money to buy back four reactors, three condensers, and a fractionation tower from Hong'an, and recruited six workers including Peng Qifa and six factory guards from the dye factory.Immediately afterwards, Huang Yancheng purchased various raw materials by tons. In July 1999, the underground drug processing factory started construction. Zeng Yungui came to Han again to teach the processing method by hand. The first batch of "goods" was 16 tons.At first, the processing plant produced 1 ton per month, then 2 tons and 3 tons per month. Every time the "goods" came out of the oven, they were packed in barrels and transported to Gongming Town, Baoan District, Shenzhen by Sun Baihuai in his own Dongfeng extended truck.At the same time, Zeng Minggui instigated Zeng Runxiao to rent warehouses 27 and 28 behind Changchun Garden in Gongming Township to store methamphetamine, and used this as a transfer station to transport liquid methamphetamine to neighboring No. 140, Puxin 2nd Road, Shipai Town, Dongguan City. Zhuangyaotou Xinsheng Village and other places in Hengshan were handed over to Liang Wang, another subordinate of Zhuang Chucheng. Liang Wang and Lin Hongjie taught Wang Songjiang, Wang Guiliang, Zheng Xiquan, Zhuang Zhenwen, "Awei" and others to process them into solid methamphetamine and transport them to Manila, Philippines. , and thus flow globally. The drug-making equipment used in this drug processing factory in Wuhan is the most advanced in the world. It operates on an assembly line, and the workers are only responsible for stirring, looking after, and packaging.Fortunately, they produce when they need goods, and rest when they don't need goods. If they keep producing 24 hours a day, the amount of methamphetamine produced will be unimaginable. By the time the police seized it, the underground processing plant had delivered 30 tons of "goods".Huang Yancheng earned millions of dollars from it, and bought a private house on Changdi Street in Hankou. It is also possible that Huang Yancheng knew that he was involved in a drug network and could not escape legal sanctions. He divorced his wife in 2000 and handed over his son to his wife for upbringing.But until the time of his arrest, the three members of Huang's family lived together. In January 2000, Liang Wang was captured by the Hong Kong police.In order to avoid being chased by the police, Zeng Minggui informed Lin Hongjie and others to immediately close down the methamphetamine processing plant in Shipai Town, Dongguan, and then ordered Lin Hongjie and Zheng Xiquan to reopen the methamphetamine processing plant. In mid-February 2000, Zheng Xiquan rented the factory building at No. 14 Dongjiang Avenue, Shipai Town, Dongguan City, and recruited Wang Zhenquan, Zhong Zhiquan and others to process and manufacture solid methamphetamine.Zheng Huo, Wang Zhenquan and "Lao Fang" produced 308 kilograms of solid methamphetamine and six barrels of about 180 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine added with hydrochloric acid in the processing plant at No. 14 Dongjiang Avenue twice. Zhong Zhiquan sent them to Changping Town, Dongguan City in batches, and stored them in On the first floor of the fourth villa in Rose Garden bought by Zheng Zi. In July 2000, the police seized the methamphetamine processing factory at No. 14 Dongjiang Avenue.In order to destroy the criminal evidence, Zheng ordered Wang Zhenquan to dump six barrels of liquid methamphetamine mixed with hydrochloric acid, and at the same time transferred 308 kilograms of solid methamphetamine from Dongguan Changping Rose Garden to No. 55 Taihe Middle Road, Shipai Town, where Wang Zhenquan lived. At the same time, Lin Hongjie continued to frantically engage in criminal activities of processing liquid ice in Hengli Town, Shipai Town and other places in Dongguan. In mid-February 2000, Lin Hongjie rented the first and second floors of No. 198 Hengquan Road, Hengli Township as a solid methamphetamine manufacturing site. In early March, he rented two factories at No. 244 and 246 Puxin Second Road, Shipai Township. Quan is here to process liquid meth. In early March, Lin Hongjie, Zeng Yungui, Xu Zhiqiang, Wang Songjiang and others transported about 200 kilograms of methamphetamine produced at No. 198 Hengquan Road, Hengli Town, Dongguan Town, to Guangzhou by car and delivered them to buyers arranged by Zhuang Chucheng; here, Lin Hongjie He also collaborated with Xu Zhiqiang, Zhuang Zhenwen, Wang Songjiang and others to help Zheng Xiquan process 125 kilograms of methamphetamine and smuggle it to the Philippines. In mid-May 2000, Lin himself funded Wang Guiliang to set up a methamphetamine processing factory in his ancestral home in Zhuanyaotou Village, Shipai Town, Dongguan, and processed 300 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine into 81 kilograms of solid methamphetamine. In mid-June, Lin rented a two-story building next to Yongsheng Auto Repair Factory on Beihuan Road, Hengli Township, as a warehouse to store liquid methamphetamine. As early as April 2000, through the introduction of Huang Hongxin and Zheng Rongchang, Zheng Xiquan smuggled 125 kilograms of solid methamphetamine commissioned by Zheng to be processed by Lin and others from Guangdong Lufeng to the Philippines.On June 20 of the same year, Zhuang Chucheng instigated Zeng Yungui to smuggle a batch of solid methamphetamine produced in a processing plant at No. 5039 Xihuan Road, Shichong Management District, Hengli Suppression, to the Philippines. He found Huang through Zheng Xiquan, and Huang introduced him to Zheng Rongchang.At the beginning of July of the same year, Zeng asked Huang and Zheng to discuss smuggling matters at the western restaurant of Tokyo Restaurant on Tianbei 4th Road, Luohu District, Shenzhen. On July 23, 2000, Zhuang Chucheng prepared a van and parked it in the parking lot of Xiongshi Hotel, Changping Town, Dongguan City. He had arranged for Wang Songjiang and Xu Zhiqiang to drive the van to No. 5039 West Ring Road, Shichong Management Area, Hengli Suppression, Together with Zhuang Zhenwen, Huang Lianghui and others, Wang and Xu used the rice bags provided by Zheng Rongchang to pack 388 kilograms of solid methamphetamine, and hid them in the trunk of the truck. Then they put 12 bags of rice on the top layer as a disguise.Zeng Yungui personally escorted the car, together with Wang Songjiang and Xu Zhiqiang, transported the batch of methamphetamine to Jiazi Town, Lufeng, and handed it over to Zheng Rongchang. But these drug criminals never expected that less than a week later, the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau quickly attacked and arrested them one by one, cracking the world's largest case of manufacturing and selling methamphetamine. After the case of Zhuang Chucheng was cracked, the police suspected that a series of serious drug cases uncovered by the mainland and Hong Kong police were related to Li Qiuping, a big drug lord known as the "Queen of Ice", who the Hong Kong police were pursuing with all their strength. Li Qiuping was born in Shanghai in 1955 and immigrated to Hong Kong with her family in 1962.As early as the mid-1970s, Li Qiuping began to engage in the production and trafficking of methamphetamine in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 1992, Li Qiuping fled to the mainland, organized and directed lawbreakers at home and abroad to set up a methamphetamine processing factory in the mainland, and smuggled thousands of kilograms of methamphetamine to Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines and other places. According to statistics from the Anti-Narcotics Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, within three years, Li Qiuping successively established secrets in Jiangmen, Guangdong (with an investment of more than 5 million Hong Kong dollars), Dongguan (540,000 Hong Kong dollars), Qingyuan (1.27 million Hong Kong dollars), the suburbs of Fuzhou and Changle, Fujian. methamphetamine factory. In the early 1990s, the Hong Kong police tried their best to hunt her down. In 1992, she immigrated to Canada as a corporate immigrant, which also attracted the attention of the local police.When the police were about to investigate her, she suddenly disappeared. The local court tried her in absentia, froze her 6.6 million Canadian dollars in assets, and issued a wanted warrant. However, Li Qiuping has not heard from her for nearly ten years. After Zhuang Chucheng was arrested, someone broke the news that Zhuang Chucheng was Li Qiuping's ex-husband, but the police didn't take it seriously. They thought: "This is just a rumor in the world, and it is not credible." Li Qiuping was born in 1955 and was 46 years old in 2001, while Zhuang Chucheng was born in 1961 and was 40 years old, with a difference of 6 years. On September 11 and 12, 2001, the world's largest case of smuggling, selling, transporting and manufacturing methamphetamine was held in Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court. The first person to appear in court was Zeng Yungui, a short and stout second defendant.Zeng Yungui, who was accused by the procuratorial organ, confessed to the crimes he committed. He also confessed that he and the first defendant Zhuang Chucheng had known each other for more than ten years, and that he had previously "worked" under another big drug criminal, Liang Wang (who has been sentenced by the Hong Kong court). "In May 1999, he and Zhuang Chucheng went to Wuhan, Hubei to open a methamphetamine processing factory. Zeng Yungui believes that he has performed a series of major meritorious service after being arrested, including cooperating with the police to arrest Zheng Rongchang and other criminal suspects, selling real estate and selling stocks in a timely manner and actively returning stolen goods. After the one-hour trial of Zeng Yungui, the first defendant, Zhuang Chucheng, walked slowly into the dock wearing handcuffs and shackles.After accusing him of participating in the crime of smuggling, trafficking, transporting and manufacturing methamphetamine, the public prosecutor began to ask: "Zhuang Chucheng, have you pleaded guilty to the charges against you just now?" "I have not participated in drug trafficking!" Zhuang Chucheng suddenly raised his voice and answered in Cantonese Prosecutor's question.Immediately, the court was stunned.Zhuang Chucheng always answered in Cantonese: "No." Suddenly, Zhuang Chucheng's eyes turned red, and while squeezing tears, he told the presiding judge in a sobbing voice that he knew nothing but Zeng Yungui, Huang Yancheng and others. In addition, he was not involved in smuggling, selling, transporting and manufacturing methamphetamine at all. Zhuang Chucheng said that he had a personal conflict with Zeng Yungui, and accused Zeng Yungui of framing himself.However, Zhuang Chucheng confessed that he had been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in Macau for drug trafficking, and the trial of Zhuang Chucheng lasted only five minutes. The public prosecutor finally proposed to the judge: “Since Zhuang Chucheng refused to plead guilty, we can only temporarily suspend the court investigation against him. "The bailiff took Zhuang Chucheng out of the courtroom. The third person to appear in court is Huang Yancheng. In addition to being charged with the same crime as the first two defendants, he was also charged with the additional crime of illegal drug production. According to Huang Yan’s account, before he met Zeng Yungui, he ran a chemical sales office in Wuhan, and later helped Zeng Yungui rent a factory to open a chemical plant, and was mainly responsible for daily production management. "Including the wages of several workers, Zeng Yungui paid me 15,000 yuan per month." Huang Yan said that his monthly salary was only four to five thousand yuan. Earn a difference of 40,000 yuan. Among all the defendants, only Lin Hongjie was the most "happy". He admitted that he had opened six methamphetamine factories and had no major meritorious service after the incident. He also claimed that he had never seen Zhuang Chucheng in the process of producing and selling methamphetamine in the Mainland. Except for Zhuang Chucheng, Zeng Yungui and Lin Hongjie, the other defendants including Huang Yancheng argued that they did not know that they were producing and selling methamphetamine before the incident. For example, Huang Yancheng claimed that Zeng Yungui only told himself that "the production is a pharmaceutical intermediate", and he himself did not know that it was methamphetamine.The presiding judge asked Huang Yancheng: "What is a 'pharmaceutical intermediate'? Is the factory legal?" Huang Yancheng hesitated and couldn't justify himself. And Zheng Xiquan confessed that others told him that he was making cosmetics, and he had never seen the finished product of methamphetamine.Wang Songjiang also said that he had seen finished products that looked like ice cubes, but no one told him it was methamphetamine, and he thought it was rice during transportation.Wang Zhenquan admitted that he was doing logistics work and only knew that it was a chemical product.Zeng Run said with a smile that his younger brother Zeng Yungui only told him that there was hydrochloric acid in the warehouse.Although Wang Guiliang, Zhuang Zhenwen, Xu Zhiqiang, Zheng Rongchang and Huang Hongxin said they did not know it was methamphetamine, they pleaded guilty at the same time.Zhong Zhiquan and Huang Lianghui neither admitted that they knew that they had manufactured methamphetamine before the crime, but also denied the accusation against them by the procuratorate. But in the face of hard facts, any sophistry is useless. On December 25, among the 14 defendants in the first-instance judgment of the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, eight including Zhuang Chucheng and Huang Yancheng were sentenced to death, three including Zeng Yungui were sentenced to death with a reprieve, and three including Huang Lianghui were sentenced to life imprisonment. The 14 defendants were simultaneously sentenced to confiscation of all personal property.