Drugs seized by the police hidden in a steel pipe sleeve.
In the evening, Deng came to the express station to pick up the parcel with the express order number, but because he did not bring his ID card, he was rejected by the express delivery point when picking up, so he contacted Tan (handled in a separate case) to come to help. When the two returned to pick up the package again, they were arrested red-handed by the public security police who had been watching them for a long time. It turned out that the package was a "poison" sent back by Huang from Yunnan.
On June 26, the court sentenced the defendant Deng to death for the crime of trafficking and transporting drugs, sentenced the defendant Huang to life imprisonment, deprived them of their political rights for life, and confiscated all their personal property; The defendant Rhubarb (pseudonym) was sentenced to six years in prison for harboring drug criminals.
Make "drug friends" and embark on the road of drug trafficking
In 2015, when Huang opened a pawnshop, he met Deng Mou, a drug addict, through the introduction of his partner, and under Deng's long-term influence and continuous instigation, Huang's idea of making "quick money" became stronger and stronger.
"I have known Deng for five or six years, and at the end of 2020, he told me that there was a way to make a fortune in Yunnan, and called me to sell drugs together to make money, and I agreed." According to Huang's confession, making friends carelessly was the beginning of his astray path.
Since December 2020, Huang and Deng have gone to Yunnan many times to find the source of drugs, but they have been unsuccessful because there are no informants and relevant channels. Just when the two were at a loss, Tan's appearance turned things around.
In March 2021, Deng took the initiative to contact Huang to discuss drug trafficking, and downstairs in Deng's rental house, Huang made a new friend brought by Deng-Tan. After some exchanges, Huang found that Tan was not only a "senior addict" with a history of drug trafficking, but also had channels to obtain drug supplies and find drugs to sell in bulk.
The three immediately decided to buy drugs from Yunnan and sell them in Yongzhou, Hunan, and discussed that Tan would be responsible for contacting the upper and lower families, while Huang and Deng would be responsible for transporting the drugs back.
Rehearse how to get the drugs back
In early April 2021, Huang discussed with Deng the use of hiding drugs in steel pipe sleeves and transporting them back by mail and courier, and began to try the feasibility of this method. The two successively purchased 16 steel pipe sleeves to take to Yunnan, filled 12 of them with rock sugar and sealed them, packed every 4 into 1 package, and mailed them back to Yongzhou in 3 times. When testing whether the transportation plan was feasible, Huang found that the four steel pipe sleeves could hold about 8 kilograms of rock sugar.
In order to ensure that the express package is foolproof, Huang contacted his cousin Rhubarb and promised to ask Rhubarb to enter the courier company to work with a reward of 10,000 yuan in order to respond.
In order to avoid regulatory investigation, Huang proposed to change his mobile phone, download the secret chat software, and set up the "burn after reading" function to automatically delete the chat history after reading.
With three packages filled with rock candy being received one after another, the drug deal was put on the agenda. On April 9, 2021, considering that Rhubarb had been idle at home, Huang invited Rhubarb to go to Yunnan together, and the two rented a two-bedroom house locally.
On the evening of April 12, 2021, Huang retrieved 8 packets of about 8 kilograms of drugs from his home, divided them into 16 small bags, sealed them in a steel pipe sleeve, and sent them back to Hunan by courier early the next morning. After Huang sent it, he took a photo of the courier order and sent it to Deng, informing him that he was ready to receive the goods.
The drug-related courier was caught by the police
On April 15, 2021, the express package finally arrived at the express station to wait for the recipient to sign for receipt. At about 6 o'clock in the evening of the same day, Tan drove around the express station to explore the wind, and Deng got out of the car to pick up the express package. When picking up the package, Deng was rejected because he did not bring his ID card, so he had no choice but to contact Tan. Later, Tan went to receive the goods with his ID card, and when he paid the courier fee of more than 400 yuan for the package, he was caught red-handed by the public security police who were squatting, and Deng did not escape.
That night, Huang, who could not contact his companion, immediately contacted his cousin Rhubarb, and fled to Kunming overnight with the help of Rhubarb. In May 2021, Huang returned to Yongzhou in a black car and hid in Rhubarb's house for fear of affecting his family. On August 25, Huang chose to voluntarily surrender to the public security organs, and Rhubarb was also arrested by the public security organs on the same day.
After the seized express package was dismantled, the police found a total of 16 packages of white crystals with a net weight of 7,925.55 grams in four steel pipe sleeves. After identification, the white crystal was indeed "ice".
On August 20, 2021, the Yongzhou Municipal Procuratorate prosecuted Deng; On January 27, 2022, a public prosecution was filed against Huang and Rhubarb. Because it was a related case, the court decided to combine the trials, and made a first-instance judgment on September 5, 2022, Deng and Huang were not satisfied and appealed, and on November 24 of the same year, the court ruled to remand for a new trial. After a public trial, the court held that Rhubarb only helped Huang, who sold and transported drugs, to abscond, and did not have a prior conspiracy with Huang for trafficking and transporting drugs, and his actions constituted the crime of harboring drug criminals, and on June 26, 2024, the court made the aforementioned judgment in accordance with law.
In response to the regulatory problems in the logistics and delivery industry exposed by the case, the Yongzhou Municipal Procuratorate issued a procuratorial suggestion to the competent department of the mail and delivery industry, urging it to improve the supervision mechanism, increase supervision, and strict law enforcement procedures, so as to protect the "big safety" in the "small package".
According to the prosecutor
Mutual love and mutual assistance between relatives and friends also need to be within the boundaries of the law, and they must not harbor and shield crimes for the sake of so-called "affection". In this case, Rhubarb should actively report and promptly exhort Huang to surrender and help him strive for the opportunity for leniency, which is the real love for him, rather than blindly caring about family affection and blindly "helping others" when he knows the facts of his crime, and finally crossing the legal red line and being prosecuted by the law. Personal feelings must not be above the law, and you must not ignore the law and put yourself in prison.
Links to legal provisions
Article 349 of the Criminal Law: Whoever harbors criminals who smuggle, sell, transport, or manufacture narcotics, or harbors, transfers, or conceals narcotics or property obtained by crime for criminals, shall be sentenced to up to three years imprisonment, short-term detention, or controlled release; where the circumstances are serious, the sentence is between three and ten years imprisonment.
Where anti-narcotics personnel or staff of other state organs shield or shield criminals who smuggle, sell, transport, or manufacture narcotics, they are to be given a heavier punishment in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
Whoever commits the crimes in the preceding two paragraphs and conspires in advance is to be punished as an accomplice to the crime of smuggling, trafficking, transporting, or manufacturing drugs.
(Procuratorate Daily, · Spiegel Weekly Author: Zhang Yinfeng, Li Zuxiao)