The Golden Triangle, a Heroin
production region
The
Golden Triangle is one of
Asia's two main illicit
opium-producing areas.
It is an area of around 350,000 square
kilometres that overlaps the mountains of four countries of
Southeast Asia: Myanmar
(Burma
), Vietnam
, Laos
, and
Thailand
.
(Other
interpretations of the Golden Triangle also include a section of
Yunnan
Province
, China
.) Along with
Afghanistan
in the Golden
Crescent and Pakistan, it has been one of the most extensive
opium-producing areas of Asia and of the world
since the 1950s. The Golden Triangle also designates the
confluence of the Ruak
River
and the Mekong river, since
the term has been appropriated by the Thai tourist industry to
describe the nearby junction of Thailand, Laos, and
Myanmar.
Opium and morphine base produced in northeastern Burma are
transported by
horse and
donkey caravans to refineries along the
Thailand–Burma border for conversion to
heroin and heroin base.
Most of the finished
products are shipped across the border into various towns in North
Thailand and down to Bangkok
for further
distribution to international markets. In the past major
Thai Chinese and
Burmese Chinese traffickers in Bangkok have
controlled much of the foreign sales and movement of Southeast
Asian heroin from Thailand, but a combination of law enforcement
pressure, publicity and a regional drought has significantly
reduced their role. As a consequence, many less-predominant
traffickers in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand now control
smaller quantities of the heroin going to international
markets.
Heroin
from Southeast Asia is most frequently brought to the United States
by couriers,
typically Thai and U.S. nationals and Hong Kong
Chinese, traveling on
commercial airlines. California
and Hawaii
are the
primary U.S. entry points for Golden Triangle heroin, but small
percentages of the drug are trafficked into New York City
and Washington, D.C.
While Southeast Asian groups have had
success in trafficking heroin to the United States, they initially
had difficulty arranging street level distribution. However, with
the incarceration of Asian traffickers in American prisons during
the 1970s, contacts between Asian and American prisoners developed.
These contacts have allowed Southeast Asian traffickers access to
individuals and organizations distributing heroin at the retail
level.
In recent years, the production has shifted to
Yaba and other forms of
methamphetamine, including for export to the
United States.
Local names:
Burma
Burma
(Myanmar) is the world's second largest producer of illicit opium,
after Afghanistan (potential production in 1996—1,090 metric tonnes,
down 35 percent due to drought; cultivation in
1999—895 km2, a 31% decline from 1998).
The
surrender of drug warlord Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army in January 1996 was hailed by
Yangon
as a major counternarcotics success, but lack of
government will and agility to take on major narcotrafficking groups and lack of serious
commitment against money laundering
continues to hinder the overall antidrug effort. Burma is
becoming a major source of methamphetamine for regional
consumption. Most of the tribespeople who are growing the opium
poppy are living under the
poverty
line.
Burma is a circle
of the Golden Triangle of opium
production. Most of the world's
heroin
came from the Golden Triangle, including Burma, until the early
21st century (when Afghanistan became the world's largest
producer).
In 1996 the
United States
Embassy in Rangoon released a "Country Commercial Guide", which
states "Exports of opiates alone appear to be worth about as much
as all legal exports." It goes on to say that investments in
infrastructure and hotels are coming from major opiate-growing and
opiate-exporting organizations and from those with close ties to
these organizations.
A four-year investigation concluded that Burma's national company
Myanma Oil and Gas
Enterprise (MOGE) was "the main channel for laundering the
revenues of
heroin produced and exported
under the control of the
Burmese army."
In a business deal signed with the French oil giant
Total in 1992, and later joined by
Unocal, MOGE received a payment of $15 million.
"Despite
the fact that MOGE has no assets besides the limited installments
of its foreign partners and makes no profit, and that the Burmese
state never had the capacity to allocate any currency credit to
MOGE, the Singapore
bank accounts of this company have seen the
transfer of hundreds of millions of US dollars," reports Casanier. According to a confidential MOGE
file reviewed by the investigators, funds exceeding $60 million and
originating from Burma's most renowned drug lord,
Khun Sa, were channeled through the company. "Drug
money is irrigating every economic activity in Burma, and big
foreign partners are also seen by the SLORC as big shields for
money laundering." Banks in Rangoon offered money laundering for a
40% commission.
The main player in the country's drug market is the
United Wa State Army, ethnic fighters
who control areas along the country's eastern border with Thailand,
part of the infamous Golden Triangle. The
Wa army, an ally of Burma's ruling
military junta, was once the militant arm of the Beijing-backed
Burmese Communist Party.
Burma has been a significant cog in the transnational drug trade
since World War II.
Poppy cultivation in the country decreased
more than 80 percent from 1998 to 2006 following an eradication
campaign in the Golden Triangle. Officials with the United Nations
Office of Drugs and Crime say opium poppy farming is now expanding.
The number of hectares used to grow the crops increased 29% in
2007. A
United Nations report cites
corruption, poverty and a lack of government control as causes for
the jump.
See also
References
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