Did AFP help Chinese catch Kalynda?

Behind bars ... Kalynda Davis is facing the death penalty in China after being charged with drug smuggling. Source: Supplied

THE Australian Federal Police may have been involved in the arrest of Penrith woman Kalynda Davis, 22, in the Chinese city of Guangzhou last month.

Davis faces a lengthy jail sentence and possible execution after being accused of smuggling methamphetamine, or "ice".

The AFP has a number of officers based permanently in the Australian consulate in Guangzhou and has been working closely with Chinese authorities on drug smuggling for several years, News Corp Australia has learned.

Joint operations are understood to have stepped up in the past few years as methamphetamine smuggling has become the main focus of Guangzhou based AFP, sources in the city said.

Serious charges ... Kalynda Davis is accused of trying to smuggle 75 kilograms of methamphetamine out of China. Source: Supplied

The Australian Federal Police declined to comment and referred inquiries to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Last year, the Chinese government launched a nationwide war on narcotics codenamed Operation Thunder which has netted large quantities of drugs and resulted in hundred of arrests including a growing number of foreigners, among them nine Australians.

Australia does not condone the death penalty but under Chinese law anyone caught smuggling more than 50g of meth or heroin faces it.

UNDER ARREST: Australian cop's daughter Kalynda Davis and Peter Gardner may face firing squad in China for alleged crime

Reports have indicated that Ms David and Peter Gardiner, 25, a New Zealand citizen and Sydney resident who was arrested with her, are accused of trying to smuggle 75kg of the drug out of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.

The potential involvement of the AFP has echoes of the Bali Nine, when the father of Scott Rush, one of the nine, tipped off the AFP expecting them to intercept his son before he left Australia for Bali.

Instead, the AFP told their counterparts in Bali, and Rush was arrested, convicted and is now serving a life sentence.

Harsh punishment ... Kalynda Davis faces the death penalty for the serious charges levelled against her. Source: Supplied

In March Guangzhou police had handed over a parcel of methamphetamine to the AFP as evidence in an Australian drug smuggling trial, part of their growing co-operation, the first time China had ever handed over such evidence to a foreign country, Chinese media reported.

And in the past two years a number of large shipments of the drug have been found coming into Australia in from China in shipping containers.

On November 6, the day after the arrest of Davis and Gardiner, AFP officers in Sydney charged a Chinese national, 55, with allegedly attempting to import about 65kg of methamphetamine, with a street value of more than $43 million, concealed within five flatpack timber packages.

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"Every day of every week we are building our intelligence picture on methodologies, schemes and more importantly the organised crime syndicates involved in this type of activity," AFP Commander Ray Johnson said.

The New Zealand Consul-General in Guangzhou, who has visited Gardiner at a detention centre in the city, said he had legal representation, so it is likely that Davis is being represented as she has been visited by Australian consular officials.

Co-accused ... Peter Gardner was arrested with Davis and also charged. Source: Supplied

But Chinese lawyers who had previously spoken to News Corp Australia confirmed that they would be facing a minimum of life in prison and potentially death by firing squad if found guilty.

China has executed a number of foreign nationals in recent years for drug offences.

The Australian Federal Police established a liaison office in the People's Republic of China in April 1999 under funding from the National Illicit Drugs Strategy.

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The office was originally set up to focus on the heroin trade transiting from Southeast Asia's notorious Golden Triangle.

China's anti-drugs sweep has caught up several tonnes of methamphetamine, resulting in hundreds of arrests and caught up at least one criminal mastermind Professor Xu, a man dubbed the Chinese Walter White after the high school teacher turned drug kingpin in the hit TV series Breaking Bad.

An increasing number of foreigners including the nine Australians and more than 100 African nationals have also been caught in range of major busts and airports stings.

If anyone has any information concerning the identities of other Australians arrested in China please contact the author on sainsburychina@gmail.com