Smashing the snakeheads

Zhao Xianming, a narcotics control officer for Mengla county in Southwest China's Yunnan province, remembers July 25 clearly.

Around midday that Saturday, he received a call from a senior police officer of Phongsaly province, northern Laos, urging him to stop a bus going from Lao to Mengla.

"I was told that a Laotian woman suspected of trafficking two girls was trying to bypass border check points," recalls Zhao.