Mainland police have smashed a drug syndicate in Yunnan province that used pregnant women as heroin couriers.
Public security officers in Baoshan have arrested 36 suspects believed to be linked to the syndicate during a six-day operation, seizing a total of 7.2kg of heroin, Xinhua reported yesterday.
The women, all recruited from Sichuan province , were asked to swallow packages of heroin in the Yunnan city of Ruili and travelled back to Sichuan on overnight coaches that had sleeping compartments.
Other women involved had just given birth and had to take along their babies, even breastfeeding them after swallowing the heroin, according to Xinhua.
'Lured by exponential profits, these women would rather brave the risks of crime and bring along with them newborn babies, or [use] their heavily pregnant bodies to courier drugs,' Xinhua said.
To lessen the chances of being caught at the border between the two provinces, they would even smear themselves with offensive-smelling materials or protest against security inspections by threatening to strip in public.
