Two Taiwanese drug dealers sentenced to death in China

Beijing, Nov 24 (Xinhua) Two Taiwanese drug dealers have been sentenced to death by a court in China's eastern province of Fujian, officials said Monday.

Chien Chih-Cheng and Chen Ming-Hsiung were among eight Taiwanese citizens sentenced last week for their role in trafficking more than 12 kg of heroin from Myanmar, an official of the intermediate people's court in provincial capital Zhangzhou said.

Chien and Chen led a gang that bought 39 packets of heroin from Myanmar in early September and sold four of them for 400,000 yuan ($60,000) in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, according to the police.

The gang had planned to take the rest of the heroin to Taiwan but a storm stranded their fishing boats in the Fujian port of Zhangzhou.

Police later arrested 13 people in Fujian and neighbouring Guangdong province in October.

Other six Taiwanese and five Chinese nationals were given jail terms ranging from 12 years to life.

The heroin catch was the largest amount of the banned drug seized by Fujian police in the past three years.