"Chinese drug police are working with Mekong countries to strike at the heart of a mega-rich meth syndicate, a senior Beijing drugs tsar said, as the region targets top-level drug traffickers instead of street dealers. The porous lawless border areas of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos have for decades been a hub for heroin production, but the so-called "Golden Triangle" drug trade is now pumping unprecedented quantities of synthetic drugs into the global markets, fuelling a US$61 billion drug trade. In large part responsible for the dramatic shift to synthetic drugs is a mega-cartel known as Sam Gor which the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime believes is Asia's biggest crime syndicate led by a Chinese-born Canadian citizen named Mr Tse Chi Lop. China is now stepping up efforts with Mekong countries Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam to take down Sam Gor in a "joint operation", said an official from China's National Narcotics Control Commission. "They are one of the major threats," said deputy commissioner Mr Andy Tsang on the sidelines of a Friday meeting to stamp out a regional plan. "The region as a whole, China included, will do our best to hit it where it hurts the most," he told AFP..."