"China?s jade obsession drives a multi-billion dollar black market that fuels a drug-infested jade mining industry....Gold is valuable but jade is priceless, so goes a Chinese saying. For centuries, the Chinese consider jade an imperial stone with mystical properties. Today it is coveted all over China as a status symbol, a collectible and an investment. Demand from increasingly wealthy Chinese drives the value of jade through the roof. At this year?s Shanghai World Jewellery Expo, auctioneers put the opening bid for top grade jade items at more than $160 a gram, exceeding four times the price of gold. Intricately designed pieces, made from top grade jade known as jadeite, are viewed as attractive investments despite the lack of scientific valuation methods. In recent years, jadeite has provided better returns than real estate. But the imperial stone delivers a death sentence to treasure hunters in Myanmar, where China?s jadeite comes from. Most of Myanmar?s raw jade enters a murky black market. Its official revenue from jade exports over from 2011 to 2014 was $1.3bn. But Harvard University?s Ash Center estimates total jade sales - including through unofficial channels - were $8bn in 2011 alone, suggesting most of the revenue does not go into government coffers. The Myanmar government will not speak to us on camera. But our investigations reveal a corrupt senior government official who works with businessmen in the illegal trade of raw jade, including helping to falsify tax documents. In northern Kachin state, we follow jade smugglers to the remote Hpakant mining town, the source of the world?s best jade. The men are part of the government?s border guard force. The officer in charge tells us how he pays off army and police commanders along the smuggling trail to China..."