Shift will enhance efforts against drug trafficking at sea, senior officer says

China's Coast Guard will be better trained once it starts working under the Chinese Armed Police Force, and it will then be able to play a leading role in fighting maritime drug trafficking, which is difficult to detect and dangerous to stop, a senior officer of the Coast Guard said on Wednesday.

"We will focus on improving the force's ability to launch precise strikes on smugglers and block their trafficking routes," Zhang Chunru, the force's chief of staff, said during a news conference in Beijing.

Starting on July 1, the force, which is tasked with stopping illegal activities at sea and safeguarding the security and order of maritime operations, will be transferred from the former State Oceanic Administration to the Armed Police Force.

Smugglers have long used sea routes to transport large quantities of drugs between countries, Zhang said, adding that it's particularly difficult to detect drugs hidden in large vessels and to carry out missions at sea.

The force has already established a cooperative mechanism with the Ministry of Public Security's narcotics control bureau. Such cooperation will be further enhanced after the transfer, he said.

"We are now facing the increasingly challenging situation of maritime drug trafficking by transnational and cross-border smugglers. By working closely with the Coast Guard, we have dealt the smugglers a severe blow," said Liang Yun, director of the bureau. Drugs from northern Myanmar and South America have become major direct threat to China, he said.

Maritime anti-drug trafficking missions can also be extremely dangerous, Zhang said. In a recent case, the Coast Guard's ships even rammed a smuggler's ship in an attempt to make it stop, Liang said.

The operation was carried out after the bureau received information that a group of drug smugglers had boarded a ship without a name or port registry in Fujian province on May 26 and headed to the East China Sea to pick up drugs.

On June 2, the joint task force set up by the bureau and Coast Guard located the ship. Two days later, the Coast Guard sent out six law enforcement vessels to intercept it. At 4:15 pm, the ship entered the ambush area.

In dense fog, Coast Guard officers risked their lives to board the vessel, Liang said. They seized 1.5 metric tons of methamphetamine and arrested six suspects who planned to burn the drugs.

Since 2014, the Coast Guard has dealt alone with nine maritime drug trafficking cases and cooperated with narcotics control authorities on 29 others. More than 6 tons of drugs have been seized during the missions, Zhang said.

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