Expat Arrested at Beijing Airport After Swallowing 1kg of Heroin

A foreign national has been arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport after he was found to have ingested heroin weighing nearly one kilogram (over two pounds) in his abdomen.

A BTV report (see video above) by the television show Time to Uphold the Law (法治进行时 fǎzhì jìnxíng shí) said a man identified as "Ike" from an unidentified foreign country was arrested for drug smuggling.

Said to be a resident of Guangzhou who had flown to Beijing to "visit a friend" without any luggage, Ike was immediately arrested by police as he walked off an Air China flight.

Although the video footage shows that Ike denied having any drugs in his body, police say the suspect finally admitted to the crime while being transported to the hospital. However, despite capturing telltale shots that include police pointing at his belly, Ike is not seen making his confession on camera.

An x-ray showed Ike to have dozens of small capsules lodged inside his stomach and large intestine (shown below). Upon their removal from his body, the capsules were found to contain 971 grams of heroin (shown at bottom).

Unfortunately, the BTV report does not include many details. Despite showing all aspects of the arrest from the police perspective, the report is heavily censored with all identities of people shown in it to be obfuscated.

Besides not knowing the suspect's full name or nationality, it's not known when the arrest took place except that it was done at 11 o'clock in the morning.

The report only described the arrest was "recent," a fact whereby the seasonal summer clothing worn by everyone in the video happens to coincide with the warm weather the city has been experiencing over the past few weeks. Additionally, the few facts of this case don't match previous instances of drug smuggling in Beijing from the past year.

So far, BTV's report appears to be the only Chinese news publication of this incident.

A 2015 report said that many of the 1,000 foreign nationals arrested for drug charges in China that year came from regions like West Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

Chinese law automatically sentences anyone convicted of trafficking 50 grams of cocaine or more to capital punishment. According to state media, about a dozen foreign nationals have been sentenced to death for drug smuggling convictions since 2000.

Images: iQiyi.com, Sohu.com

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