DRUG SQUAD ROOM: "Attention! Dress Right!"
MCDONELL: It's morning meeting for the drug squad at Qing Long Chang.
DRUG SQUAD ROOM: "Eyes front! Sit down!"
MCDONELL: Here Lieutenant Li Liuhua runs a 24-hour station where 70 officers rotate on three shifts. This is the front line in China's war on drugs flowing in from neighbouring Myanmar and we've been given rare access to see their operation.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: [addressing Drug Squad] "This path is the major one for drugs coming in. But they will probably take the neighbouring roads".
MCDONELL: The squad operates a checkpoint near the border to filter drug traffic. Lieutenant Li shows how the main routes from Myanmar converge on that position yet how more recently, the smart drug runners have been getting around them via more isolated paths.
Last week we shone a light on the booming drug business that's transformed the heartland of the old Golden Triangle heroin trade into China's personal meth lab. From the country we used to call Burma via a porous border, through regional towns where methamphetamine deals are done out in the open and on to China's raucous club scene in the super cities. We witnessed a new generation ice storm in a country not used to a suped-up drug culture.
Last year these officers played their part in the interception of 9 tons of Burmese ice coming into the country. They're taking on some major business interests.
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG: "Drug crime is high-profit, serious crime. Driven by profit and defending their interests, criminal syndicates will take desperate risks - it's a struggle of life and death".
MCDONELL: Yunnan is a place that dreams are made of. With its lush forests, mountains, rivers and remote ethnic groups, it's the China of paintings and poems right there in front of you. Yet there's a side to this province not spoken of in the tourist brochures. It's the staging post for a major narcotics trade flowing in to meet Chinese demand and lucrative markets beyond.
We're on our way to the thin line between the drug runners and the rest of the world.
"Well we're driving through what has to be one of the most beautiful parts of China and searching for drugs. We're here with the Yunnan Provincial Drug Squad. Mr Xue, he's showing us around and I'll just have a bit of a word to him.
"Mr Xue do you think that recently it's been harder or easier for you to apprehend people smuggling drugs?"
MR XUE: "There have been a lot of cases and it's not easy".
MCDONELL: "Not easy? Why?"
MR XUE: "With drugs coming in from overseas, it's impossible to stop them all. There are a lot of paths. Our police forces don't have enough manpower - we just don't have enough people".
MCDONELL: The Chinese police are patrolling a four thousand kilometre border region here and they know they're battling to keep it under control. We arrive at Qing Long Chang to speak to them about the monumental task they've been given of trying to hold back the tide. This has become a very busy unit indeed and we're about to see why.
Here Lieutenant Li Liuhua tells us that they can go for weeks without a bust, yet sometimes will catch multiple drug runners in quick succession. China may be known for its media control but he says we can film whatever happens while we're here. And straight away they're into it.
No nook or cranny is beyond suspicion. No bag of vegetables to be left unstabbed. No delivery too urgent to be delayed and no family enterprise is beyond being questioned.
POLICE OFFICER: [to man in car] "How often do you transport goods?"
PASSENGER: "If business is good, probably once a day. If not, probably every three or five days".
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG (Narcotics Control Bureau): "We feel this is getting more and more severe. There are more and more drugs being processed both inside and outside of China. There is more and more demand so of course there will be more and more smuggled drugs. So this really is becoming a serious problem".
MCDONELL: A black Audi pulls up and it draws immediate attention. One officer is responsible for picking suspicious vehicles and this one has been identified as such. It's not the type of car so much as who's driving it. Girls in frilly dresses move through pretty quickly. Young men in groups are prime suspects. They also don't mind letting the police know what an inconvenience it is. [male driver of Audi argues with police] This is not going to go smoothly.
The police say drug-related criminal cases in China were up by 20% last year. According to their records, this involved 133,000 arrests. Critics of China's legal system would question not only the voracity of these statistics but the procedural fairness of police work here. Yet a substantial increase in Chinese drug crime is also corroborated by international sources.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "You wait here! You wait here!"
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "I'm going to get some water".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "We're checking now, why don't you cooperate?"
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "Ok. Ok. After you check our vehicle, can we go then?"
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "We check you in accordance with the law and you don't run around. You should just rest here. Sit down".
MCDONELL: The water finally comes and tempers cool a little but the search of their car uncovers a secret compartment under the boot. It's rammed with cartons of cigarettes. These will all have to be checked. It also means their car is now up for a thorough examination.
In the meantime a long distance bus has arrived from the border and again it's the young men who are asked to get off first to be scrutinised. Bags are searched and questions asked. In many parts of the world, even elsewhere in China, it'd be seen as rather excessive for police to drag passengers off a bus and frisk them in this way simply because they're travelling in a certain direction. But in Yunnan's drug belt, it's becoming standard procedure.
One young man comes off the bus and he's not like the others. He appears edgy, even as small items are taken out of his pocket - and as he's frisked from head to toe. This man is scared. He joins the line of fellow passengers who've been chosen for a scan in the x-ray truck. He looks around and won't meet the direct gaze of anyone, least of all our camera. After all the others have been checked, it's his turn.
POLICE IN X-RAY VAN: [pointing at x-ray] "One, two, three pieces".
MCDONELL: It seems they've spotted something on the x-ray.
POLICE IN X-RAY VAN: "Here is a bag. All together there are three bags. It looks like ice.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious. He's inserted three bags at once".
MCDONELL: What they've found inside this man are three packets of methamphetamine, known on the streets as ice.
POLICE IN X-RAY VAN: "There is nothing in his stomach. They are around his anus.
Get out of the van!"
MCDONELL: This travelling man is now in serious trouble and he's having the situation spelt out to him pretty plainly.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Now, you shouldn't lie to me. We can see from the X-ray machine, you're carrying them inside your arse. You should be honest with us - we'll give you this chance, okay? You tell us right now. We have already seen it from the equipment, you can't run away. You don't need to be nervous, tell me the truth, okay?"
MCDONELL: His fellow travellers are still not back on the bus and within earshot of the conversation.
"The reason they've put this tape around him is because you know if the drugs come out they don't want them to fall out of the bottom of his jeans there.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Once you brought the drugs across, how were they going to contact you? [no answer] How were they going to contact you?
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I don't know".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "You don't know? Let me tell you - stop telling lies to me. You should cooperate with us immediately to reduce the punishment. After all, you've only transported these drugs for other people - they don't belong to you".
MCDONELL: The young man slowly begins to realise that his fate has been sealed and starts to open up, telling him that he made this run for the equivalent of five hundred dollars.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "For such a small amount of money, you carried them? This is a crime. Drug trafficking is a crime. To transport drugs is a crime - do you know that? Do you know that?
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I didn't know they were drugs".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "What?"
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I didn't know they were drugs".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "You didn't know they were drugs? So why did you insert them inside you? Why?
MCDONELL: "The police have been asking him how much did you pay for the drugs... what time did you insert them... what's your final destination... who are the people ... obviously they're trying to do a bit of a deal with him, saying if you give up the people who've gotten you to bring these drugs up here then we'll be more lenient on you".
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I needed to be in Kunming first".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Right so you needed to be in Kunming and they would contact you from here. All right - handcuff him".
MCDONELL: Most of the drug mules they're catching are hardly big time criminals and the police know it.
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG (Narcotics Control Bureau): "For these people they are very poor. The economy in their areas is not good. More importantly, they are poorly educated. They don't know about the law. They're just pawns of the criminal groups".
MCDONELL: With nightfall a new shift marches into place. The checking, searching and questioning rolls on relentlessly. But as thorough and as persistent as they are, they'll never get it all.
[to Lieutenant Li Liuhua] "The drugs they're carrying are where? Mostly. Inside their bodies? Inside cars? Where?"
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Most of them are hidden in the "sandwich layers" of cars. For example, this part, you could have a "sandwich layer". You can only see it from underneath. In big trucks, they could be hidden in goods and in "sandwich layers". Not as much inside human bodies. You can stuff it in, but not much quantity".
MCDONELL: Commissioner Jiang Mingdong has been a drug squad police officer in Yunnan for 30 years. He's proud of how many drugs they've seized during his career.
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG: "The amount is huge - more than 200 tons! Can you imagine if we'd let those 200 tons float inland or into the international community how much damage it could've caused?"
MCDONELL: Police here stage mass burns of confiscated drugs. It's a public relations exercise to send a message that they're not a light touch. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs go up in flames but the syndicates know it's nothing, compared to the profits to be made if they can transport these goods to lands far away, to places like Australia.
Just take the AFP's figures for this year's intercepts coming into Australia from China. January, Perth, methamphetamine 35 kilograms. June, Sydney, methamphetamine, 57 kilograms, street value $42 million. May, Sydney liquid methamphetamine, 72 litres. February, Sydney pure methamphetamine, 13 kilograms. February, Sydney, methamphetamine, 585 kilograms, street value $438 million.
This last case was the largest ice seizure ever seen in Australia.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON (Former Beijing Liaison Officer): "There's Chinese organised crime working in Australia but equally they're working with Australian nationals, organised criminals".
MCDONELL: Commander Ray Johnson worked out of the Australian Federal Police Beijing station for three years.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON: "I think it's fair to say that the drug problem in China is growing. Yes, China is a source country for the supply of an amount of drugs to Australia".
MCDONELL: Chinese drugs are being smuggled into Australia in garden hoses, bags of cleaning chemicals, ceramic tiles and shampoo bottles. For methamphetamine precursor chemicals coming into Australia the major source is now China. For ecstasy precursor chemicals coming into Australia the major source by quantity is China. We know this because Chinese and Australian police are conducting joint operations. At times they deliberately let the drugs go through in order to catch everyone involved.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON: "We might discover the export from China and in cooperation with our Chinse partners we could substitute with an inert substance and allow the export to become an import into Australia and then for the while investigate the syndicate that surrounds that import".
MCDONELL: When a series of container ships arrived at Port Botany two years ago, it marked the beginning of a major China-Australia campaign to stem the flow of drugs between the two countries. Hidden in these shipments were more than 2,800 litres of the precursor chemical safrole oil, enough to make millions of ecstasy tablets and according to the AFP with a street value of around $500 million. In what was known as Operation Hitch, the materials were seized, arrests made and police say it led to the dismantling of an alleged transnational drug importation syndicate.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON: "That operation resulted in the arrest of three people in Australia and it ultimately led to the arrest of twenty three people in China and the seizure of a further 500 litres".
MCDONELL: Now we're told barely a week goes by when criminal intelligence is not being shared between China and Australia, allowing Chinese police to make arrests as well. Our drug squad has even written a song trumpeting the team's success.
DRUG SQUAD, (SINGING): "The green mountains accompany me. The stars love us. Day and night we persist and uphold our work lines on the national roads. Though the vehicles stream like a river, we will not let any ferocious drug criminals get through. No matter how cunning those drug traffickers are and how they try to cover themselves our penetrating eyes can see through them".
MCDONELL: Qinglong Chang Drug Squad believes it has heroin basically under control, at least it's stable, but methamphetamine is another matter. In 2005 around 8% of drug busts in China involved ice. Now they're nudging 40%. It's an exploding market and it's where these police are concentrating much of their energy.
SINGING: "Loyal to the people! Dedicated to our duties! Loyal to the people! Dedicated to our duties!"
MCDONELL: On board the long-distance sleeping buses the checking is going ahead in full swing. Bags are searched and documents examined with plenty of questions. A tap on the shoulder from a colleague... they've found something.
POLICE OFFICER: "Where are you going?"
WOMAN: "To Kunming".
POLICE OFFICER: "What are you going to do there?"
WOMAN: "My boss asks me to go there".
MCDONELL: This woman is asked to produce her ID but doesn't have one. She's a Burmese citizen. A woman travelling with a small child clearly doesn't fit the profile of those the police have been homing in on. And yet she is carrying methamphetamine.
"You can see here somebody else has been caught carrying drugs. They've come in from Burma and they're hiding the drugs inside some sort of... again it looks like a condom or something like that, they've been hiding them underneath the mattress of this bus. The police are now asking them where they got this from and just the details of where they intended to take them".
POLICE OFFICER: "Whose child is this?"
WOMAN: "He's mine".
POLICE OFFICER: "How old?"
WOMAN: "One to two years".
POLICE OFFICER: "Do you have any more?"
WOMAN: "Nothing else".
The woman and child are taken off the bus. She'll be questioned, but either way normally in China, any run in with the law means you're going down.
"Can we have a look?"
She shows us the three packets of ice she was attempting to deliver to the regional capital. This seems to be the standard amount that poor couriers are asked to take.
"We're actually going to try and ask her a couple of questions to get translated through the local police here".
[in Chinese] "Can you ask her why she did it? Is it because of money, or why? Did somebody make her do it?
[Interchange in Burmese between police officer and woman]
[Stephen interprets] "Money, money".
POLICE OFFICER: "Five thousand, did you get it in the hand?"
WOMAN: "Not yet. When I deliver it there, I get paid".
MCDONELL: "So a friend has gotten her to do this. Obviously they're poor people and someone's given them 5,000 yuan to bring these drugs across the border".
That's around 900 Australian dollars.
"I'm just trying to establish if lots of people from their village actually bring drugs across the border. It seems they do".
[in Chinese] "Has she done this before?"
[Interchange in Burmese between police officer and woman]
[Stephen translates] So she's done this before herself. So she's successfully brought drugs across the border before and this is the second time she's done it.
The police say that pregnant women or women with small children are favoured to act as drug couriers. It's not only because they look less suspicious. This woman tells the police that she is still breastfeeding her child. Under the Chinse system that means she won't be sent to gaol - at least for the moment. We're later told that she's to be sent back to Myanmar until her child is of a certain age, then apparently the Burmese police will hand her back over to China to face trial here.
As for our young men pulled over earlier by the police, they were also carrying a sword and a large knife in their car but no drugs.
LIUENTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Our duty is to check for the drugs but you're carrying controlled knives. It's not necessary to arrest you - you haven't hurt anyone. We're just confiscating them".
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "They were given by my friends as gifts".
LIUENTENANT LI LIUHUA: "We can't return them to you. Those are the controlled knives".
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "If you're really not giving them back we will go then".
MCDONELL: And with that, they're allowed to go.
Yet this man's life has come to a devastating cross roads before our eyes. He is looking at a minimum of 10 to 15 years in gaol.
As China's drug trade flourishes, there are many like him running the gauntlet here, poor people taking the quick money so others can reap the profits - and try though the police might to plug the holes, in their hearts they know that the tide is well and truly coming in.
MCDONELL: It's morning meeting for the drug squad at Qing Long Chang.
DRUG SQUAD ROOM: "Eyes front! Sit down!"
MCDONELL: Here Lieutenant Li Liuhua runs a 24-hour station where 70 officers rotate on three shifts. This is the front line in China's war on drugs flowing in from neighbouring Myanmar and we've been given rare access to see their operation.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: [addressing Drug Squad] "This path is the major one for drugs coming in. But they will probably take the neighbouring roads".
MCDONELL: The squad operates a checkpoint near the border to filter drug traffic. Lieutenant Li shows how the main routes from Myanmar converge on that position yet how more recently, the smart drug runners have been getting around them via more isolated paths.
Last week we shone a light on the booming drug business that's transformed the heartland of the old Golden Triangle heroin trade into China's personal meth lab. From the country we used to call Burma via a porous border, through regional towns where methamphetamine deals are done out in the open and on to China's raucous club scene in the super cities. We witnessed a new generation ice storm in a country not used to a suped-up drug culture.
Last year these officers played their part in the interception of 9 tons of Burmese ice coming into the country. They're taking on some major business interests.
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG: "Drug crime is high-profit, serious crime. Driven by profit and defending their interests, criminal syndicates will take desperate risks - it's a struggle of life and death".
MCDONELL: Yunnan is a place that dreams are made of. With its lush forests, mountains, rivers and remote ethnic groups, it's the China of paintings and poems right there in front of you. Yet there's a side to this province not spoken of in the tourist brochures. It's the staging post for a major narcotics trade flowing in to meet Chinese demand and lucrative markets beyond.
We're on our way to the thin line between the drug runners and the rest of the world.
"Well we're driving through what has to be one of the most beautiful parts of China and searching for drugs. We're here with the Yunnan Provincial Drug Squad. Mr Xue, he's showing us around and I'll just have a bit of a word to him.
"Mr Xue do you think that recently it's been harder or easier for you to apprehend people smuggling drugs?"
MR XUE: "There have been a lot of cases and it's not easy".
MCDONELL: "Not easy? Why?"
MR XUE: "With drugs coming in from overseas, it's impossible to stop them all. There are a lot of paths. Our police forces don't have enough manpower - we just don't have enough people".
MCDONELL: The Chinese police are patrolling a four thousand kilometre border region here and they know they're battling to keep it under control. We arrive at Qing Long Chang to speak to them about the monumental task they've been given of trying to hold back the tide. This has become a very busy unit indeed and we're about to see why.
Here Lieutenant Li Liuhua tells us that they can go for weeks without a bust, yet sometimes will catch multiple drug runners in quick succession. China may be known for its media control but he says we can film whatever happens while we're here. And straight away they're into it.
No nook or cranny is beyond suspicion. No bag of vegetables to be left unstabbed. No delivery too urgent to be delayed and no family enterprise is beyond being questioned.
POLICE OFFICER: [to man in car] "How often do you transport goods?"
PASSENGER: "If business is good, probably once a day. If not, probably every three or five days".
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG (Narcotics Control Bureau): "We feel this is getting more and more severe. There are more and more drugs being processed both inside and outside of China. There is more and more demand so of course there will be more and more smuggled drugs. So this really is becoming a serious problem".
MCDONELL: A black Audi pulls up and it draws immediate attention. One officer is responsible for picking suspicious vehicles and this one has been identified as such. It's not the type of car so much as who's driving it. Girls in frilly dresses move through pretty quickly. Young men in groups are prime suspects. They also don't mind letting the police know what an inconvenience it is. [male driver of Audi argues with police] This is not going to go smoothly.
The police say drug-related criminal cases in China were up by 20% last year. According to their records, this involved 133,000 arrests. Critics of China's legal system would question not only the voracity of these statistics but the procedural fairness of police work here. Yet a substantial increase in Chinese drug crime is also corroborated by international sources.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "You wait here! You wait here!"
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "I'm going to get some water".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "We're checking now, why don't you cooperate?"
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "Ok. Ok. After you check our vehicle, can we go then?"
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "We check you in accordance with the law and you don't run around. You should just rest here. Sit down".
MCDONELL: The water finally comes and tempers cool a little but the search of their car uncovers a secret compartment under the boot. It's rammed with cartons of cigarettes. These will all have to be checked. It also means their car is now up for a thorough examination.
In the meantime a long distance bus has arrived from the border and again it's the young men who are asked to get off first to be scrutinised. Bags are searched and questions asked. In many parts of the world, even elsewhere in China, it'd be seen as rather excessive for police to drag passengers off a bus and frisk them in this way simply because they're travelling in a certain direction. But in Yunnan's drug belt, it's becoming standard procedure.
One young man comes off the bus and he's not like the others. He appears edgy, even as small items are taken out of his pocket - and as he's frisked from head to toe. This man is scared. He joins the line of fellow passengers who've been chosen for a scan in the x-ray truck. He looks around and won't meet the direct gaze of anyone, least of all our camera. After all the others have been checked, it's his turn.
POLICE IN X-RAY VAN: [pointing at x-ray] "One, two, three pieces".
MCDONELL: It seems they've spotted something on the x-ray.
POLICE IN X-RAY VAN: "Here is a bag. All together there are three bags. It looks like ice.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious. He's inserted three bags at once".
MCDONELL: What they've found inside this man are three packets of methamphetamine, known on the streets as ice.
POLICE IN X-RAY VAN: "There is nothing in his stomach. They are around his anus.
Get out of the van!"
MCDONELL: This travelling man is now in serious trouble and he's having the situation spelt out to him pretty plainly.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Now, you shouldn't lie to me. We can see from the X-ray machine, you're carrying them inside your arse. You should be honest with us - we'll give you this chance, okay? You tell us right now. We have already seen it from the equipment, you can't run away. You don't need to be nervous, tell me the truth, okay?"
MCDONELL: His fellow travellers are still not back on the bus and within earshot of the conversation.
"The reason they've put this tape around him is because you know if the drugs come out they don't want them to fall out of the bottom of his jeans there.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Once you brought the drugs across, how were they going to contact you? [no answer] How were they going to contact you?
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I don't know".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "You don't know? Let me tell you - stop telling lies to me. You should cooperate with us immediately to reduce the punishment. After all, you've only transported these drugs for other people - they don't belong to you".
MCDONELL: The young man slowly begins to realise that his fate has been sealed and starts to open up, telling him that he made this run for the equivalent of five hundred dollars.
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "For such a small amount of money, you carried them? This is a crime. Drug trafficking is a crime. To transport drugs is a crime - do you know that? Do you know that?
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I didn't know they were drugs".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "What?"
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I didn't know they were drugs".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "You didn't know they were drugs? So why did you insert them inside you? Why?
MCDONELL: "The police have been asking him how much did you pay for the drugs... what time did you insert them... what's your final destination... who are the people ... obviously they're trying to do a bit of a deal with him, saying if you give up the people who've gotten you to bring these drugs up here then we'll be more lenient on you".
YOUNG CHINESE MAN: "I needed to be in Kunming first".
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Right so you needed to be in Kunming and they would contact you from here. All right - handcuff him".
MCDONELL: Most of the drug mules they're catching are hardly big time criminals and the police know it.
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG (Narcotics Control Bureau): "For these people they are very poor. The economy in their areas is not good. More importantly, they are poorly educated. They don't know about the law. They're just pawns of the criminal groups".
MCDONELL: With nightfall a new shift marches into place. The checking, searching and questioning rolls on relentlessly. But as thorough and as persistent as they are, they'll never get it all.
[to Lieutenant Li Liuhua] "The drugs they're carrying are where? Mostly. Inside their bodies? Inside cars? Where?"
LIEUTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Most of them are hidden in the "sandwich layers" of cars. For example, this part, you could have a "sandwich layer". You can only see it from underneath. In big trucks, they could be hidden in goods and in "sandwich layers". Not as much inside human bodies. You can stuff it in, but not much quantity".
MCDONELL: Commissioner Jiang Mingdong has been a drug squad police officer in Yunnan for 30 years. He's proud of how many drugs they've seized during his career.
COMMISSIONER JIANG MINGDONG: "The amount is huge - more than 200 tons! Can you imagine if we'd let those 200 tons float inland or into the international community how much damage it could've caused?"
MCDONELL: Police here stage mass burns of confiscated drugs. It's a public relations exercise to send a message that they're not a light touch. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs go up in flames but the syndicates know it's nothing, compared to the profits to be made if they can transport these goods to lands far away, to places like Australia.
Just take the AFP's figures for this year's intercepts coming into Australia from China. January, Perth, methamphetamine 35 kilograms. June, Sydney, methamphetamine, 57 kilograms, street value $42 million. May, Sydney liquid methamphetamine, 72 litres. February, Sydney pure methamphetamine, 13 kilograms. February, Sydney, methamphetamine, 585 kilograms, street value $438 million.
This last case was the largest ice seizure ever seen in Australia.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON (Former Beijing Liaison Officer): "There's Chinese organised crime working in Australia but equally they're working with Australian nationals, organised criminals".
MCDONELL: Commander Ray Johnson worked out of the Australian Federal Police Beijing station for three years.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON: "I think it's fair to say that the drug problem in China is growing. Yes, China is a source country for the supply of an amount of drugs to Australia".
MCDONELL: Chinese drugs are being smuggled into Australia in garden hoses, bags of cleaning chemicals, ceramic tiles and shampoo bottles. For methamphetamine precursor chemicals coming into Australia the major source is now China. For ecstasy precursor chemicals coming into Australia the major source by quantity is China. We know this because Chinese and Australian police are conducting joint operations. At times they deliberately let the drugs go through in order to catch everyone involved.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON: "We might discover the export from China and in cooperation with our Chinse partners we could substitute with an inert substance and allow the export to become an import into Australia and then for the while investigate the syndicate that surrounds that import".
MCDONELL: When a series of container ships arrived at Port Botany two years ago, it marked the beginning of a major China-Australia campaign to stem the flow of drugs between the two countries. Hidden in these shipments were more than 2,800 litres of the precursor chemical safrole oil, enough to make millions of ecstasy tablets and according to the AFP with a street value of around $500 million. In what was known as Operation Hitch, the materials were seized, arrests made and police say it led to the dismantling of an alleged transnational drug importation syndicate.
COMMANDER RAY JOHNSON: "That operation resulted in the arrest of three people in Australia and it ultimately led to the arrest of twenty three people in China and the seizure of a further 500 litres".
MCDONELL: Now we're told barely a week goes by when criminal intelligence is not being shared between China and Australia, allowing Chinese police to make arrests as well. Our drug squad has even written a song trumpeting the team's success.
DRUG SQUAD, (SINGING): "The green mountains accompany me. The stars love us. Day and night we persist and uphold our work lines on the national roads. Though the vehicles stream like a river, we will not let any ferocious drug criminals get through. No matter how cunning those drug traffickers are and how they try to cover themselves our penetrating eyes can see through them".
MCDONELL: Qinglong Chang Drug Squad believes it has heroin basically under control, at least it's stable, but methamphetamine is another matter. In 2005 around 8% of drug busts in China involved ice. Now they're nudging 40%. It's an exploding market and it's where these police are concentrating much of their energy.
SINGING: "Loyal to the people! Dedicated to our duties! Loyal to the people! Dedicated to our duties!"
MCDONELL: On board the long-distance sleeping buses the checking is going ahead in full swing. Bags are searched and documents examined with plenty of questions. A tap on the shoulder from a colleague... they've found something.
POLICE OFFICER: "Where are you going?"
WOMAN: "To Kunming".
POLICE OFFICER: "What are you going to do there?"
WOMAN: "My boss asks me to go there".
MCDONELL: This woman is asked to produce her ID but doesn't have one. She's a Burmese citizen. A woman travelling with a small child clearly doesn't fit the profile of those the police have been homing in on. And yet she is carrying methamphetamine.
"You can see here somebody else has been caught carrying drugs. They've come in from Burma and they're hiding the drugs inside some sort of... again it looks like a condom or something like that, they've been hiding them underneath the mattress of this bus. The police are now asking them where they got this from and just the details of where they intended to take them".
POLICE OFFICER: "Whose child is this?"
WOMAN: "He's mine".
POLICE OFFICER: "How old?"
WOMAN: "One to two years".
POLICE OFFICER: "Do you have any more?"
WOMAN: "Nothing else".
The woman and child are taken off the bus. She'll be questioned, but either way normally in China, any run in with the law means you're going down.
"Can we have a look?"
She shows us the three packets of ice she was attempting to deliver to the regional capital. This seems to be the standard amount that poor couriers are asked to take.
"We're actually going to try and ask her a couple of questions to get translated through the local police here".
[in Chinese] "Can you ask her why she did it? Is it because of money, or why? Did somebody make her do it?
[Interchange in Burmese between police officer and woman]
[Stephen interprets] "Money, money".
POLICE OFFICER: "Five thousand, did you get it in the hand?"
WOMAN: "Not yet. When I deliver it there, I get paid".
MCDONELL: "So a friend has gotten her to do this. Obviously they're poor people and someone's given them 5,000 yuan to bring these drugs across the border".
That's around 900 Australian dollars.
"I'm just trying to establish if lots of people from their village actually bring drugs across the border. It seems they do".
[in Chinese] "Has she done this before?"
[Interchange in Burmese between police officer and woman]
[Stephen translates] So she's done this before herself. So she's successfully brought drugs across the border before and this is the second time she's done it.
The police say that pregnant women or women with small children are favoured to act as drug couriers. It's not only because they look less suspicious. This woman tells the police that she is still breastfeeding her child. Under the Chinse system that means she won't be sent to gaol - at least for the moment. We're later told that she's to be sent back to Myanmar until her child is of a certain age, then apparently the Burmese police will hand her back over to China to face trial here.
As for our young men pulled over earlier by the police, they were also carrying a sword and a large knife in their car but no drugs.
LIUENTENANT LI LIUHUA: "Our duty is to check for the drugs but you're carrying controlled knives. It's not necessary to arrest you - you haven't hurt anyone. We're just confiscating them".
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "They were given by my friends as gifts".
LIUENTENANT LI LIUHUA: "We can't return them to you. Those are the controlled knives".
MALE DRIVER OF AUDI: "If you're really not giving them back we will go then".
MCDONELL: And with that, they're allowed to go.
Yet this man's life has come to a devastating cross roads before our eyes. He is looking at a minimum of 10 to 15 years in gaol.
As China's drug trade flourishes, there are many like him running the gauntlet here, poor people taking the quick money so others can reap the profits - and try though the police might to plug the holes, in their hearts they know that the tide is well and truly coming in.