The Shanghai No

The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zhao Gaoming to death for trafficking heroin weighing more than 7,000 grams. His personal property was also confiscated. Police said the 48-year-old had been previously convicted for illegal fund raising. The court said Zhao had arranged for two people, on separate occasions, to carry heroin weighing a total of 7,376 grams from Myanmar to Shanghai in September and December 2003. Zhao was caught in Myanmar by the army and was remanded to police custody in Shanghai in January 2004 following the arrests of his fellow traffickers. The court found Zhao arranged for Chen Changtao, one of his accomplices, to swallow heroin packed in plastic bags on September 27. Chen smuggled the drug into the city by air. Chen was captured by city police as soon as he got off the plane on September 29 at Hongqiao Airport. Chen later excreted 56 plastic bags that contained a total of 376.41 grams of heroin. Zhao tried again in November 2003, sending another man with 7,000 grams to the city. The trafficker and the local dealers were arrested by police after they completed the transaction in a hotel room on December 8. The court ruled Zhao had violated the law by smuggling, trading and trafficking drugs.