Three informants received a total of 250,000 yuan (US$30,000) in reward money on Thursday for information leading to the arrests of two of China's most-wanted drug traffickers.

In the first move of its kind, last November the Ministry of Public Security asked the public for help in locating five major drug trafficking suspects who had long evaded arrest.

The ministry offered a total of 380,000 yuan (US$46,000) for clues about the five: Liu Zhaohua, the suspected ringleader of the group, and Ma Shunsu, Luo Youwen, Qiu Heshui and Liu Shaotong.

At Thursday's presentation ceremony in Beijing, police representatives accepted the checks on behalf of the informants, whose identities are being kept confidential for their protection.

The largest reward, 200,000 yuan (US$24,000), is being shared equally by two tipsters in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region for the capture of suspect Liu Zhaohua.

The alleged ringleader of a widespread drug trafficking network, Liu is suspected of manufacturing up to 14 tons of methamphetamine, known on the street as "ice." The drug was made at an underground plant in northwest Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, according to Chen Cunyi, deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security's Narcotics Control Bureau.

Liu, 40, was arrested on March 5 in a rented house in his hometown of Fu'an in east China's Fujian Province, said Chen. He had evaded arrest since 1999, when local police in southern Guangdong Province found 11 tons of "ice " stored at a warehouse in Guangzhou.

So far, police have seized more than 12 tons of the drug, with a street value of US$5 billion in other countries, in connection with the investigation of Liu.

Also at Thursday's ceremony, a check for 50,000 yuan was given to a police officer from Yunnan on behalf of the tipster who assisted in locating accomplice Ma Shunsu.

Ma, a native of Dali Prefecture of southwest China's Yunnan Province, was apprehended in Myanmar on January 8 and has now been returned to China, according to Chen.

The maximum punishment for production of more than 50 grams of "ice" is death.

The other three suspects remain at large, said Chen. Rewards of 50,000 yuan (US$6,000) each have been offered to information on the location of Luo and Qiu, and of 30,000 yuan (US$3,600) for Liu Shaotong.

(China Daily March 11, 2005)