A disturbing instance of power abuse has recently been uncovered in Nanjing, China, where a deputy police station chief has been imprisoned for five years for masterminding an elaborate scheme that victimized six underage individuals.
Court records show that the officer, identified by his surname Ma, collaborated with a civilian associate to stage a fake drug-related incident in a bid to meet his law enforcement quotas. In January 2024, Ma’s accomplice rounded up six minors and lured them to a hotel room, while Ma provided e-cigarettes laced with etomidate—a strictly regulated anesthetic substance.
Unaware of the harmful contents in the e-cigarettes, the underage victims were convinced to use the devices. Shortly afterward, Ma and his team arrived at the scene to “arrest” the minors, falsely framing the incident as a genuine drug bust to inflate his arrest statistics.
Subsequent investigations exposed the entire operation as a premeditated plot, in which the minors were manipulated into unknowingly using drugs solely to help Ma boost his performance metrics.
In April 2026, the Liuhe District People’s Court in Nanjing delivered its first-instance judgment. Ma was found guilty of deceiving others into drug use and sentenced to five years in prison; three of his accomplices were also sentenced to jail terms for their involvement in the scheme.
The case has triggered widespread public outrage, with many expressing disbelief that such a severe breach of public trust could occur within the law enforcement system. Calls have been growing for stricter supervision and oversight to prevent similar abuses of power from happening in the future.
