Railway police have arrested 11 suspects and confiscated 7.7 kilograms of methamphetamine from a criminal ring that has been running drugs from Guangdong Province to Shanghai and neighboring provinces, local media reported Saturday.

The majority of the suspects are Shanghai natives, which police said is unusual because much of the local drug business is run by people from other parts of China, the China News Service reported.

Police also confiscated 445,000 yuan ($72,400) in cash and 260 capsules of a stimulant called magu, which is a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine.

The ring sourced the methamphetamine from Guangdong Province and sold it in Shanghai and surrounding areas at prices up to seven times what they paid for it.

Police began investigating the ring when they arrested a man surnamed Fu, 59, from Baoshan district, on November 4 at a railway station in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, the report said. A patrol officer stopped Fu to check his identification and found he had a history of drug use.

The officer searched Fu and found 27 packages of a suspicious white substance in his bag and pockets. The substance turned out to be 198 grams of methamphetamine. Fu said he bought the drug from another dealer, according to the report.

While investigating Fu, police discovered an inter-provincial drug trafficking network. The ring transported the drugs on long-distance buses from Guangdong to Shanghai, where they would be distributed to different levels of middlemen and drug dealers, the report said.

The ring bought the methamphetamine for 80 yuan per gram and sold it for 500 yuan to 550 yuan per gram in Shanghai and Jiangsu Province.

One suspect, surnamed Wu, a Guangdong native who was responsible for transporting the drugs, rented an apartment in Huangpu district to serve as a warehouse, the report said. To protect himself from police, Wu used a counterfeit passport to sign the lease and didn't use the apartment as a residence.

Police arrested Wu on December 12. They found a pistol, six bullets and a large amount of methamphetamine in the rented apartment. They also arrested two Shanghai natives, surnamed Shi and Yang, who distributed the drugs to dealers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. When they searched Shi and Yang's apartments, police found drugs stashed all over, including under the mattresses, in the refrigerators and inside the bedside tables.

The two men met in prison 19 years ago while Shi was serving time for drug trafficking and Yang was in for robbery.

Global Times