Nearly 500 kg of drugs were burnt by police in the Chinese capital ahead of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking June 26.
The drugs – weighing 489 kg – were seized by police in 2008 and 2009, Ma Guoyun, deputy director of the narcotics control office was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Police burn confiscated drugs every two years, during which the narcotics are kept as evidence in criminal cases.
The drugs included heroin, ice, cocaine and marijuana. They would have fetched about 260 million yuan (about $40 million) in the global market, Ma said.
“The move to destroy the drugs before the international anti-drug day was a demonstration of the police’s zero tolerance policy on drug trafficking,” said Jiang Liangdong, deputy head of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security.