Veteran officer still chasing traffickers

More than 1,300 drug users apprehended, over 40 trafficking rings dismantled and 2.1 metric tons of narcotics seized — these staggering figures mark the 18-year career of Wu Zhen, a seasoned narcotics officer stationed along Yunnan province's volatile border.

Wu, 42, a member of the Party committee and a fourth-grade senior police chief with the Mangshi border management brigade under the Dehong border control detachment, describes his daily duties as a blend of "maintaining public security in border areas and cracking down on cross-border crime".

But most of his time, he said, is spent on the hunt.

In January 2025, while investigating a small-time drug dealer, Wu uncovered a trafficking network. After two months of painstaking surveillance, he mapped out their smuggling routes. When intelligence suggested a major shipment would move in early March, Wu led a task force to intercept it.

On the day of the operation, thick fog blanketed the area, reducing visibility to near zero. The traffickers, traveling by motorcycle, moved erratically and paused frequently to check if they were being tailed. Wu and his team waited in silence, biding their time.

When they finally moved in, the traffickers panicked and fled, skidding across the slick road. Two of them leaped off a 5-meter embankment in a desperate bid to escape. Wu and his officers gave chase and swiftly subdued them, recovering 5.6 kilograms of heroin on the spot.

"Investigations are like hunting for prey," Wu said. "Success demands patience. Not every effort pays off, but each one requires 100 percent commitment."

Unlike the adrenaline-fueled portrayals in police dramas, real operations, Wu said, are "tedious yet perilous". He believes films often "romanticize and glorify the work".

With nearly two decades of experience on the front lines, Wu has been involved in the arrests of more than 200 suspects in drug-related cases and the detention of over 1,300 drug users. He has helped dismantle more than 40 trafficking networks and led seizures of 2.1 tons of narcotics and 1,000 kilograms of precursor chemicals.

His achievements have earned him a first-class merit citation, two second-class merits and two third-class honors. But Wu downplays the accolades.

"Medals matter less than closing cases," he said. "Around me, everyone's a hero — these medals aren't special. But solving a case that's weighed on you for years? That's true relief."

Wu said fear rarely surfaces in the line of duty.

"It's professional discipline," he said. "Fear isn't in my vocabulary — nor in my colleagues'."

Yet the toll of constant danger and pressure demands an outlet. For Wu, that outlet is poetry.

"Writing seeks inner peace. Verse expresses what words cannot," he said, adding that a collection of his poems was published last year.

During the interview, he described his vision of an ideal day: a quiet patrol along a winding stretch of the border with his team by his side under calm skies.

"At the end of the day," he said, "no matter what you do, inner peace is what matters. It defines how we live — and how we work."