Chinese police launch cinematic raid on rural "meth village"

^{Police cars are seen during a raid where three tonnes of crystal meth were seized at Boshe village, Lufeng}

But the once bucolic community had reportedly morphed into a real life version of Breaking Bad.

Qiu Wei, a senior anti-narcotics officer, told state media a third of China's entire methamphetamine or crystal meth supply had been coming from this one small village. He did not specify how much that was.

Around 20 per cent of locals were either 'directly involved or had a stake in drug production and trafficking rings', Mr Qiu claimed.

The operation to retake Boshe began at around 4am last Sunday, when Li Chunsheng, Guangdong's vice governor, gave the order to invade, the Legal Daily newspaper reported.

Police entered the village 'with lightning speed' and over the coming hours 182 arrests were made in the surrounding region, as security agents carrying assault rifles dragged grimacing suspects from their hideouts and homes.

^{Paramilitary policemen guard suspects during the raid}

Among the arrests was Cai Dongjia, who police described as their 'number one target'.

Mr Cai had been the local Communist Party village chief and was one of 14 government officials taken into custody for suspected links to 18 drug rings.

Cai Hanwu, another Party official, was caught with 78lbs of crystal meth in his home, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said.

Mr Qiu, the police chief, said there was no way the village's drug trade could have become 'so rampant' without the collusion of police and government officials.

A local newspaper reporter who was allowed to accompany police during the raid described extraordinary scenes inside the picturesque village's old homes.

'Boshe was filled with a strange chemical smell when the reporter entered [it] with police,' the journalist wrote. 'The reporter went with the raid team into a residential house and found that all the rooms apart from the bedroom were being used to make crystal meth.'

'The rooms were packed with barrel after barrel of brownish, half-finished products giving them the appearance of soybean sauce workshops,' the reporter added.

For police in Guangdong Sunday's raid was the highlight of an ongoing anti-drug campaign that began last July. Nearly 11,000 suspects have been detained and 8.1 tons of drugs seized since 'Operation Thunder' began.

However, Qiu Wei, the police chief told reporters Boshe was merely 'the tip of the iceberg.'

'This raid is just the beginning, not the end,' he was quoted as saying.

'We will launch a second raid, a third raid and many more [raids].'