Anti-drug departments of China and Laos collaborated closely to successfully solve the murder case of a policeman from Xishuangbanna in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, China’s anti-drug authority announced on Sunday. This is being hailed as a major feat in anti-drug law enforcement cooperation between the two countries.
During an encounter with five drug traffickers on 4 December, 2021, Cai Xiaodong, a 38-year-old anti-drug border officer, was shot dead. Global Times reports that Cai was deputy head of the law enforcement investigation team at the Xishuangbanna border administration detachment under the Yunnan General Station of Exit-Entry Frontier Inspection.
The late law enforcement official was part of an operation in the border province of Yunnan against five Laotian drug dealers who smuggled narcotics into China. During arrest, one of the traffickers resisted and opened fire on the police which led to Cai’s demise. The five drug traffickers managed to flee the incident and escape back to Laos.
This transnational crime saw a lot of attention from Chinese security officials who urged their Lao counterparts to nab the traffickers promptly. The Chinese ministry went on to cooperate with the law enforcement departments from Laos, Myanmar and other neighboring countries to carry out a joint pursuit of the cross-border fugitives.
Following this effort, police in Laos managed to arrest some of the suspects but the shooter Piaosha Laojiesha, remained at large. Further collaboration to find out about his whereabouts helped Lao authorities discover last December that the suspect had secretly returned home.
The police surrounded his house the next day and persuaded him to surrender, but Piaosha, who had explosives under his possession, threatened to detonate them. The Lao police shot at him to deter him, but he was grievously injured from the gunfire and had to be rushed to the hospital where he passed away the next day.
Lao and Chinese authorities hope that this incident will serve as a deterrent for transnational drug traffickers in the area and set a new example for regional law enforcement and security cooperation. Both the countries will continue to cooperate on such cases and assisting in regional drug control efforts.
