A suspected drug lord from Myanmar faces trial in a court in Kunming, Yunnan Province. (Photo : www.chinadaily.com.cn)
Five police officers from the Zhangshu City detention center were punished after they were found guilty of neglecting their duties by allowing a detained convict to sell drugs while serving his sentence in Jiangxi Province, the Global Times reported.
In Dec. 2010, Huang Xiaochun was sentenced by a local court to serve three and a half years in prison for dealing drugs. But instead of serving his sentence in a prison, Huang stayed in a detention center, violating the order of the provincial public security department to transfer to prison all convicts who face a jail term of more than one year or are guilty of serious crimes such as drug dealing.
According to the report, Huang was able to use a laptop and a cell phone while in detention to continue with his drug deals for a year with the help of five police officers in the Zhangshu City detention center.
The report said that Huang escaped from the detention center after the case was finally exposed, but he was then arrested again and finally executed in 2014 for drug dealing and illegal trading of guns and ammunition.
Chen Xiaotao, a senior officer at the detention center and one of the officers who helped Huang, said that he asked other detention center officials to allow the convict to serve his sentence in the center and later convinced the head of the center to agree.
The report said that Huang also asked Chen to buy every police officer in the center a meal and also bribed a police officer surnamed Xu with 10,000 yuan ($1,561) to allow him to work in the center's shop, as this area was not tightly supervised.
While working in the shop, Huang reportedly asked an outsider to buy him a Samsung smartphone and a laptop computer, which he used to build his network and continue with his deals. He was also allowed to leave the center as he pleased.
Huang also met Wang Xiaohua in 2011, who became his girlfriend and accomplice in selling drugs.
On June 22, 2012, the local police arrested Wang after selling three bags of methamphetamine, a bag of cannabis, a rifle and 28 bullets.
Huang escaped after failing to reach Wang. He was later arrested and executed in 2014.
The five detention center officers, including the center's head, were all found guilty of neglecting their duties in April.
The report said that the Zhangshu center is not the only penal institution beset by problems. The Department of Justice in Yunnan Province investigated 31 prisons and 14 rehab centers where more than 10,000 prohibited objects were found.
