Arms-trafficking gang busted in Sino-US effort
By Li Xinran |
June 12, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TWENTY-SIX people suspected of trans-border weapon smuggling were arrested and more than 100 firearms, most with defaced serial numbers, plus a large quantity of ammunition and gun parts, were seized during a recent Sino-US joint law enforcement operation, China's Ministry of Public Security said yesterday.
Officers from the ministry and their peers with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement cracked the cross-border arms smuggling network after Shanghai customs discovered a package of pistols and rifle parts shipped from the New York City borough of Queens via international delivery services at the Pudong International Airport in August.
A task force of Chinese police and customs caught 32-year-old Wang Ting, the receiver of the UPS package, in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, on August 26.
Wang, a Taizhou native, confessed to investigators he imported the arms from a US-based online arms dealing network headed by Lin Zhifu.
Lin, a 25-year-old Fujian Province native, left China for the US in November 2009 and set up the online network of arms dealers. He met Wang online and developed Wang into one of his middlemen in China.
Lin sent the cargos to the middlemen via UPS service for Chinese buyers, according to the ministry.
All the suspects involved in the trade used fabricated personal information.
Chinese officers identified and arrested 23 of them in 16 provincial areas including Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong and confiscated 93 firearms plus more than 50,000 bullets and large sums of gun parts mainly from the US.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers met Chinese police in Shanghai in January to discuss cooperation in the case. They examined the firearms, which were determined to be barred from export without a license from the US State Department.
US law enforcement officers arrested Lin and his Chinese accomplice Li Lilian in New York.
They then arrested the suspected mastermind, US National Guard Staff Sergeant Joe Debose, in Smithfield, North Carolina on May 20 and seized 12 guns ready for their journey to China.
Debose, a soldier with a Special Forces unit, was carrying a loaded .45-caliber pistol when arrested, authorities said.
"The suspects in North Carolina and New York allegedly ran a pipeline of illegal firearms from the United States to China," US Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said in statement. "The arrest of Debose marks the latest in a series of charges brought by this office against international gun traffickers."
From December 2010 to last month, Debose provided multiple shipments of firearms to associates who packaged them and had them sent to customers in China, the statement said.
Officers from the ministry and their peers with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement cracked the cross-border arms smuggling network after Shanghai customs discovered a package of pistols and rifle parts shipped from the New York City borough of Queens via international delivery services at the Pudong International Airport in August.
A task force of Chinese police and customs caught 32-year-old Wang Ting, the receiver of the UPS package, in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, on August 26.
Wang, a Taizhou native, confessed to investigators he imported the arms from a US-based online arms dealing network headed by Lin Zhifu.
Lin, a 25-year-old Fujian Province native, left China for the US in November 2009 and set up the online network of arms dealers. He met Wang online and developed Wang into one of his middlemen in China.
Lin sent the cargos to the middlemen via UPS service for Chinese buyers, according to the ministry.
All the suspects involved in the trade used fabricated personal information.
Chinese officers identified and arrested 23 of them in 16 provincial areas including Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong and confiscated 93 firearms plus more than 50,000 bullets and large sums of gun parts mainly from the US.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers met Chinese police in Shanghai in January to discuss cooperation in the case. They examined the firearms, which were determined to be barred from export without a license from the US State Department.
US law enforcement officers arrested Lin and his Chinese accomplice Li Lilian in New York.
They then arrested the suspected mastermind, US National Guard Staff Sergeant Joe Debose, in Smithfield, North Carolina on May 20 and seized 12 guns ready for their journey to China.
Debose, a soldier with a Special Forces unit, was carrying a loaded .45-caliber pistol when arrested, authorities said.
"The suspects in North Carolina and New York allegedly ran a pipeline of illegal firearms from the United States to China," US Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said in statement. "The arrest of Debose marks the latest in a series of charges brought by this office against international gun traffickers."
From December 2010 to last month, Debose provided multiple shipments of firearms to associates who packaged them and had them sent to customers in China, the statement said.
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