BEIJING, Jan 6 ― A Chinese drug enforcement officer has been linked to government officials arrested after the seizure of nearly three tonnes of the drug crystal methamphetamine in the southern province of Guangdong last month, local media reported.

Thousands of armed police arrested at least 182 people in a dramatic raid on Boshe, a seaside village which has supplied over a third of China’s meth nationwide in the past three years, according to the government.

Investigators found that a captain of the drug enforcement squad in surrounding Lufeng city, surnamed Guo, was linked to the former Boshe Communist Party secretary Cai Dongjia, who was arrested in the December 29 raid, the influential Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Guo has been subjected to “shuanggui”, a form of detention imposed on party officials suspected of corruption, the paper said without giving further details.

The report said Cai had used his position to obtain information about the police investigation prior to the raid and notified suspects.

More than 20 per cent of households in Boshe were involved in drug production and trafficking rings, the Guangdong public security department has said.

In China, methamphetamine is the second most popular drug after heroin. ― Reuters