A man from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to carry more than 200 grams of methamphetamine on a train, a railway court said Tuesday.

The defendant, Li Qiaolong, 27, from the city of Changji, was waiting at Shanghai Railway Station for a train bound for Urumqi, Xinjiang, on September 2 when a patrolling officer asked to check his State identification card and railway ticket, according to a press release from the Shanghai Railway Transportation Intermediate Court.

The officer suspected Li might be a drug addict because of his pale appearance, the court said.

The officer searched Li's belongings and found two packages of a suspicious white substance in Li's wallet, the court said. Police went on to find two more packages of the substance on Li, one in his pocket and another in a pack of cigarettes he was carrying.

The Shanghai Drug Testing Center analyzed the substance and determined it was methamphetamine, the court said. The four packages weighed a combined 213 grams.

Li said the drug was for his personal use, and he only bought so much because it was cheap, according to the press release.

He denied that he was transporting the drug for someone else.

However, Chinese criminal law defines the act of carrying more than 50 grams of methamphetamine as drug trafficking.

The court found Li guilty of trafficking because he was carrying so much of the drug that it couldn't all be for his personal use, the court said.

A conviction of drug trafficking requires a mandatory sentence of seven years to life in prison, according to the law.

The court also fined Li 30,000 yuan ($4,950).