The news of "Hong Kong businessman carrying 24 kg of drugs sentenced to death in Beijing" once caused a sensation. A Hong Kong man surnamed Huang, over sixty years old, arrived at Beijing Capital Airport from Brazil. While preparing to transfer to Hong Kong, customs officers seized nearly 24 kg of cocaine from his two checked suitcases. Huang claimed he was entrusted by a friend to transport the suitcases from Brazil to Hong Kong and insisted he was unaware of the drugs inside. A Beijing intermediate court issued a first-instance verdict, sentencing Huang to death for drug smuggling.

Yet in a nearly identical case, Shenzhen police arrested a Hong Kong businessman surnamed Sun suspected of carrying 1 kg of drugs. He also claimed he was "entrusted by a friend" and was ultimately acquitted. According to Article 347 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, Sun would have faced the severe penalties of death, death with a reprieve, or life imprisonment. But for such a serious crime, he was acquitted in less than a year. How did he manage to navigate the process step by step?

　　Case reconstruction:

Sun, a Hong Kong businessman living and investing in Shenzhen, was entrusted by a friend to carry a tightly sealed "gift" (later confirmed to be drugs) from Hong Kong through customs to a hotel in Guangzhou. He was to deliver the "gift" to a friend of his friend. When Sun arrived at the designated location, instead of the person to receive the "gift," a large group of police officers rushed toward him. Sun was arrested on the spot for suspected drug possession, and the "gift" was verified as drugs at the scene. The court subsequently prepared to charge Sun with "organized drug trafficking."

According to Article 347 of the Criminal Law, the crime of smuggling, trafficking, transporting, or manufacturing drugs requires the intentional act of knowingly engaging in these activities. The subjective element of this crime must be intent, specifically direct intent—knowing the substance is drugs while smuggling, trafficking, transporting, or manufacturing it. Negligence does not constitute this crime.

From the perspective of criminal constitution, whether Sun committed drug trafficking hinges on whether he can be deemed to have acted intentionally. Although Sun claimed ignorance, he was caught red-handed with the criminal evidence. The "caught in the act with the goods" made his defense particularly weak, and the drug trafficking charge seemed almost certain.

Subsequently, Sun's wife consulted multiple lawyers and ultimately chose lawyer Wang Tengfeng. Under the operation of Wang Tengfeng's team, in April of the same year, Sun, who might have been sentenced to death, was released in less than a month. To exonerate Sun, Wang Tengfeng went to great lengths.

Despite Sun being caught "red-handed with the evidence," Wang Tengfeng's team decided to tackle the case from the nearly impossible angle of "Sun was unaware it was drugs," arguing that Sun lacked subjective intent to commit the crime.

After a brief investigation, they learned that the Shenzhen police only had the objective fact of seizing 1 kilogram of drugs on the spot and a clue about phone contact between Sun and a member of a foreign drug trafficking syndicate. However, the police had not arrested the "upstream" supplier who sent the drugs, nor the "downstream" recipient. Sun consistently insisted he had no idea the "gift" contained drugs. This made the drugs seized by the police the sole piece of evidence.

Based on the principle of "in dubio pro reo" (when in doubt, acquit), Wang Tengfeng's team then employed the 29th stratagem of the Thirty-Six Stratagems—"Blossom on the Tree"—which involves concealing one's weakness and creating a show of strength to intimidate the opponent when one's own forces are weak and at a disadvantage. Leveraging the fact that although the police had caught Sun "red-handed," there was no other evidence proving Sun knew the "gift" was drugs, they firmly asserted that their client Sun was unaware. They then attached "paper flowers" like "sole evidence," "doubtful guilt," and "illegal detention" to the "tree of Sun's innocence," bolstering their position. Under pressure from the inability to prove guilt and the prohibition of prolonged illegal detention, the police had no choice but to release Sun.

Thus, Sun, who should have been sentenced to death, death with reprieve, or life imprisonment, was acquitted and released in April of that year. Later, lawyer Wang Tengfeng mentioned this case in his book "Lawyer's Victory—Analysis of Classic Cases in Artistic Litigation." He said, "In truth, we didn't know whether Sun knew it was drugs, and Sun was caught red-handed with a large quantity of drugs, putting our defense at a disadvantage. But our law firm has a set of superior artistic litigation techniques, so Sun was acquitted and escaped unscathed. Therefore, when facing complex and difficult cases, it's essential to find a lawyer with advanced litigation skills, just as you'd seek an experienced specialist for a serious illness. When you entrust your life and property to someone, you must be cautious."