Burma: drug production and trafficking

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Title: Opium Production Spreads to Chin State
Description: "Free Burma Rangers (FBR) recently finished a mission to document opium production in Chin State, Burma. Chin State is not widely known in Burma for its production of opium. With the recent flooding in the region, however, FBR teams on the ground have noted that many internally displaced people (IDPs) and farmers have turned to the cash crop as a more profitable means of income in the wake of the massive destruction of traditional crops. In the past, when floods or droughts destroyed crops, many farmers in Chin State took to hunting and fishing in order to provide for their families. Within the last couple years however, with the floods depleting local fishing stocks, and the Indian military shutting down hunting along the border, villagers have been left with few options to provide for themselves and their families. As the opium poppy is a drought-resistant crop, it is an easier and more lucrative means of making money when other means fail. Opium farming is not without risk, however. One example is Singpial Village, with around 70 houses located near the border of India in Chin State. Since the villagers there started farming opium, there have been seven opium-related deaths and the arrest of another four individuals in cases involving opium smuggling. Chin FBR teams note however that many of the local authorities and police in Singpial are apathetic to opium production and have not taken reasonable steps to eradicate the illicit production of drugs. Opium farming seems more prevalent in areas that do not receive social services. For example, Tonzang Township is an area that is now regionally notorious for its opiumproduction. Here villages have no government-supported schools, paved roads, or running water. In some villages there is a practice of farmers hiring extra labor to work crops in nearby fields, while they themselves farm opium in fields within the nearby jungle. In order to tackle the problem of opium farming, underlying problems must be dealt with first. Irrigation channels destroyed by nature must be repaired, the infrastructure that allows crops to be sold in markets must be built, and schools must be established. Unless concrete steps are taken to alleviate the underlying causes of drug production, the growing of opium in Chin State will likely increase..."
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
Date of publication: 2016-03-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-10
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Language: English
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Title: 70 kg of heroin seized in Myanmar's eastern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized 70 kilograms of heroin in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, a joint police force confiscated heroin worth one billion kyats (750,750 U.S. dollars) from a vehicle along with one suspect in Tachilek township on Monday. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation was underway as per the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,498 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 2,293 people were charged in connection with the cases as of Jan. 9 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-15
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Title: 7.7 kg of heroin seized in northwestern Myanmar
Description: " Myanmar authorities seized 7.7 kilograms of heroin in Sagaing Region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. Acting on a tip-off, the joint police force made a seizure during their operation in Salingyi township on Saturday. Heroin worth 770 million kyats (550,000 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from a car. The township police filed a case against 10 suspects in connection with the case and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,246 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,922 people were charged in connection with the cases as of July 11 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-26
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Title: Large haul of narcotic drugs seized in Myanmar's eastern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized a large haul of narcotic drugs in the eastern Shan state, according to a statement from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday. The security forces made a seizure during their operation near Yaypusan village in Tachileik township on Tuesday. About 1.9 million of stimulants worth over 2.9 billion kyats (2.1 million U.S. dollars), 20 kg of stimulants worth 300 million kyats (214,285 U.S. dollars) and materials used in making drugs were confiscated. Further investigation is underway to capture the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the statement said. According to the latest statistics released by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,210 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar, while 1,869 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 27, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-02
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Title: Thailand, Myanmar Burn More Than $2 Billion in Seized Drugs
Description: "Authorities in Myanmar and Thailand say they destroyed more than $2 billion in seized illegal drugs Friday to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. In Bangkok and in Thailand's Ayutthaya province to the north, government officials incinerated 25 tons of confiscated drugs, including methamphetamine, "ice," ecstasy, cocaine and heroin. National Police Lieutenant General Wisanu Prasarthong-osoth told the Reuters news agency drug dealers have not let the COVID-19 lockdown slow them down. He said they have resorted to sending drugs through the mail and other parcel delivery services. In Myanmar's capital, Yangon, the national police force burned $144 million worth of seized drugs. Confiscated drug stockpiles were also destroyed in Mandalay, Lashio and the Shan State capital, Taunggyi. The country remains the second biggest producer of heroin and the source of most of South East Asia's methamphetamine, which is mostly produced in border regions outside the government's control, authorities said. The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution in 1987 designating June 26 as the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking as an expression of its determination to strengthen action and cooperation to achieve the goal of an international society free of drug abuse..."
Source/publisher: "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-27
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Title: 17.6 kg of heroin, stimulants seized in Myanmar's northwestern state
Description: " Myanmar authorities seized 17.6 kilograms of heroin and 125,400 stimulants in Sagaing region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Thursday. Acting on a tip-off, the anti-narcotic police force made a seizure during their operation in Pinlebu township on Wednesday. Heroin worth 1.76 billion kyats (1.25 million U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 627 million kyats (447,857 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from a car along with four suspects. The township police filed a case against the suspects and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,196 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,846 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 20 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-26
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Title: 8 nabbed, 166 kg drugs seized in border province
Description: "Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province cracked a drug trafficking case, apprehending eight suspects and seizing more than 166 kg of drugs, local authorities said Wednesday. On May 21, local police nabbed the first six suspects in the city of Baoshan, situated along the China-Myanmar border. Later, two other suspects were caught. Further investigation is underway. Yunnan is a major front in China's battle against drug crime, as it borders the Golden Triangle known for its rampant drug production and trafficking..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-24
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Title: Myanmar destroys seized precursor chemicals in eastern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities have destroyed seized precursor chemicals and paraphernalia worth over 3.38 billion kyats (over 2.4 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state on Tuesday, according to a release from the Ministry of Information. The destruction ceremony was held in Kutkai township to mark the 33rd International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking which will fall on June 26. The destroyed items included 47 kinds of precursor chemicals and 50 types of paraphernalia which were seized in connection with 55 cases in the township from Feb. 20 to April 9 this year. Narcotic drugs which were seized across the country will be destroyed on June 26..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-23
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Title: Myanmar Reports Steep Rise In Drug Trafficking And Violence As General Elections Approach
Sub-title: Drug trafficking, violence and terrorism have been on the rise in Myanmar as the country prepares for its general elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Description: "Myanmar’s third general election in six decades is scheduled to take place amid coronavirus pandemic. It is reportedly a landmark development for the country's democratic transition. According to reports, However, Myanmar is also currently facing a sudden and steep rise in activities related to drug trafficking, violence and terrorism. Drug trafficking, violence and terrorism on the rise As per reports, authorities in Myanmar only recently seized 711,000 stimulants, worth over 1.4 billion kyats (over 1 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state. The Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) announced the seizure of the stimulants on June 13. In a similar incident, the authorities had confiscated narcotic drugs worth 459 million kyats (306,000 US dollars) from two Bangladeshi women in Rakhine State. According to reports, Myanmar’s President office in a release claimed that a total of 1,169 drugs-related cases were registered across Myanmar as of June 6, 2020. And 1,811 people connected to those case have been charged by the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department that was formed in 2018. Read: Canadian Pastor Held In Myanmar For Flouting Gathering Rule Read: 12 Insurgents Handed Over By Myanmar, 206 Others Test COVID Negative In Manipur As per reports, terror and violence incidents have also increased alongside drug trafficking in Myanmar. In the recent weeks, six Arakan National Party (ANP) members in Taungup Township of Myanmar's Southern Rakhine State have been brought up on charges under the country’s Terrorism Law. The Arakan Army and the Myanmar government have been reportedly been engaged is some of the country’s most intense conflicts in years. Tensions between the government have shown no signs of easing even amid the coronavirus pandemic and the branding of the Arakan Army as terrorists by the government is expected to make matters worse..."
Source/publisher: "Republic World" (India)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-15
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Title: 22 kg of heroin seized in Myanmar's eastern state
Description: " Myanmar authorities seized 22 kilograms of heroin in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. Acting on a tip-off, a joint anti-narcotic police team searched a vehicle in Hsenwi township on Saturday. Heroin worth 660 million kyats (471,428 U.S. dollars) was confiscated from the vehicle and one suspect arrested. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,169 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,811 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 6 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-14
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Title: Over 8 kg of heroin, stimulants seized in Myanmar's northernmost state
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized 8.14 kg of heroin and 142,500 stimulants in Kachin state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, a police force stopped and searched a car in Shwe Ku township late Sunday. Heroin worth 651.2 million kyats (465,142 U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 427.5 million kyats (305,357 U.S. dollars) were seized from the car and three suspects were arrested. The township police filed a case against the suspects and further investigation is underway, the release said. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,169 drug-related cases have been registered across Myanmar while 1,811 have been charged in connection with the cases as of June 6 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department in June 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-13
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Title: Stimulants worth over 1 mln USD seized in Myanmar's eastern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities confiscated 711,000 stimulants, worth over 1.4 billion kyats (over 1 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Saturday. Acting on a tip-off, a joint-police force made the seizure at a house in Mabein Township on Friday. Two suspects were also arrested. The township police filed a case against the suspects and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a recent release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,169 drugs related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,811 people were charged in connection with the cases as of June 6 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department in 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-13
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Title: Police foil Myanmar-led drug syndicate in Penang
Description: "Penang police scored a major win in their fight against drugs with the arrest of five people — including four Myanmar nationals — and the seizure of drugs worth more than RM1.2 million in two separate raids, recently. State police chief Datuk Sahabudin Abd Manan said the first raid between 6.45pm on June 5 and 8am in June 6, arrested the four, including a Myanmar woman, believed to be the mastermind. "The police seized drugs worth more than RM810,000 which included 2,980g heroin base, 8,493g syabu and 14,000 WY pills," he said at the state police contingent headquarters today. He said the second raid, also within those two days, saw the arrest of a 29-year-old man. There, police seized 4,533g of MDMA-laced drinks, 20 Ecstacy pills and 90 Erimin 5 pills worth RM465,500. "Both cases are not related but serve the same local market. "The five people have been remanded until June 12 to assist investigation under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952. "The drugs would be sold to some 129,500 addicts if found their way to the market," he added..."
Source/publisher: "New Straits Times" (Malaysia)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-09
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Title: Over 4 kg of heroin seized in Myanmar's northwestern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized 4.092 kg of heroin in Sagaing Region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Thursday. Acting on tip-offs, the anti-narcotic police force stoped and searched a car in Khampat township on Tuesday. Heroin worth over 245 million kyats (over 175,371 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the car. The township police filed a case against four suspects in connection with the case and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. On the same day, a total of 202,000 stimulants worth 202 million kyats (144,285 U.S. dollars) were seized in Tachileik township of the Shan state. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office on Monday, a total of 1,156 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,790 were charged in connection with the cases as of May 30 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-04
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Title: Huge fentanyl haul seized in Asia's biggest-ever drugs bust
Sub-title: The massive haul raises fears that the opioid crisis ravaging the US may emerge in Asia
Description: "Myanmar police say they have seized a huge haul of liquid fentanyl, the first time one of the dangerous synthetic opioids that have ravaged North America has been found in Asia’s Golden Triangle drug-producing region. In a signal that Asia’s drug syndicates have moved into the lucrative opioid market, Reuters can reveal more than 3,700 litres of methylfentanyl was discovered by anti-narcotics police near Loikan village in Shan State in northeast Myanmar. The seizure of the fentanyl derivative was part of Asia’s biggest-ever interception of illicit drugs, precursors and drug-making equipment, including 193 million methamphetamine tablets known as yaba. At 17.5 tonnes, the yaba almost equalled the amount seized in the previous two years in Myanmar. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the scale of the bust was unprecedented and Myanmar’s anti-drug authorities had “dismantled a significant network” during a two-month operation involving police and military. Also seized were almost 163,000 litres and 35.5 tonnes of drug precursors, as well as weapons. There were more than 130 arrests. Even so, the methylfentanyl discovery was an ominous indicator for the region’s illicit drug market, the U.N. agency and a Western official based in Myanmar told Reuters. “It could be a game-changer because fentanyl is so potent that its widespread use would cause a major health concern for Myanmar and the region,” said the Western official, who declined to be identified..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-31
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Title: Stimulants worth over 13 mln USD seized in Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized a large haul of stimulants in Rakhine state, according to a release from the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services on Sunday. Acting on tip-offs, the security force raided a house in Maung Taw Township on Saturday. Stimulants worth over 14.2 billion kyats (over 10 million U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the house and two suspects were held. The township police filed a case against the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. On the same day, stimulants worth over 4.8 billion kyats (over 3.2 million U.S. dollars) were seized in Tachileik township of the Shan state. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,136 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,745 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of May 23 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-31
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Title: Large haul of stimulants, ICE seized in Myanmar's eastern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized large haul of stimulants and methamphetamine (ICE) in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. Acting on tip-offs, the anti-narcotic police force stoped and searched a car travelling to Moe Mate township from Mantong township on Saturday, and 168,000 stimulants worth 336 million kyats (240,000 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the car along with one suspect. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation is underway under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. On Friday, 124 kg of methamphetamine (ICE) and 248,000 stimulants were seized from a car in Ywangan township of the same state. According to a latest release issued by the President's Office, a total of 1,123 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,724 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of May 16 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-25
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Title: Record-breaking Myanmar drug busts show Asia’s crime syndicates still on the rise
Summary: "In what may be Southeast Asia’s largest drug bust, authorities in Myanmar have announced the seizure of 35.5 tons of methamphetamine and other drugs and 163,000 liters of precursor chemicals in...
Description: "In what may be Southeast Asia’s largest drug bust, authorities in Myanmar have announced the seizure of 35.5 tons of methamphetamine and other drugs and 163,000 liters of precursor chemicals in northeastern Myanmar’s Shan State. The seizures, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, took place in the area around Kutkai township between February 20 and April 9. Drug labs in Shan State have become a primary source of narcotics for the entire Asia-Pacific region in recent years. An international investigation recently identified the dominant force behind this trade as a single crime syndicate known as Sam Gor. There are no reports as to whether the recent seizures are connected to this organization, but from what authorities have disclosed, Southeast Asia’s drug syndicates are producing and trafficking drugs on such a scale that a few dozen tons are an acceptable loss. The operations in Shan seized 193 million “yaba” methamphetamine tablets—nearly 18 tons of meth—as well as over 500 kilograms of crystal meth, 630 kilograms of ephedrine, 588 kilograms of opium and 292 kilograms of heroin. The quantity of methamphetamine found is nearly double the total amount seized by the Myanmar government in 2018 or 2019. Authorities also seized over 3,500 liters of liquid methylfentanyl, which is used to make fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that is reportedly fifty times stronger than heroin and lethal in doses as small as two milligrams. Fentanyl was partially to blame for three drug overdoses in Bangkok late last year. The incident has led some to believe that fentanyl is now in the heroin supply of the Thai capital. “We can today confirm that drug production and trafficking in and through Shan is not what some have been thinking; it is more than meth tablets and crystal and has evolved to synthetic opioids on a scale nobody anticipated,” said Jeremy Douglas, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific..."
Source/publisher: "ASEAN Today" (Singapore)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-23
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Title: Wa State Hands Drug Suspect and Meth Bust to Myanmar Authorities
Description: "The United Wa State Army (UWSA) on Wednesday handed over a drug trafficker it arrested along with 3.5 million methamphetamine pills in the south of the Wa self-administered zone. “The handover took place in Hui-au, in our controlled area of southern Wa State. We have also handed over other detainees to the government after previous arrests,” UWSA external relations officer Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy. In response to a drug trafficking tipoff, a USWA battalion searched the Lwel Htwe mountain range about 5 km from the Thai border, he said. The UWSA said it found around 40 suspected drug smugglers, who opened fire on the troops. After exchanging fire, one suspect was killed and another was detained alive, according to the UWSA. The armed group said it seized around 3,510,000 meth pills. “We carried out an interrogation. The others fled and the case is not over so it is inappropriate to reveal the details but most of the suspects were from Myanmar’s territory,” said Nyi Rang. Myanmar’s military and police took part in the handover, said military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun. “As it is an area held by an EAO [ethnic armed organization], we assisted the police. The police will open a case,” he said..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-23
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Title: South-east Asia's biggest synthetic drugs raid: 200m meth tablets found in Myanmar
Sub-title: Thousands of litres of methyl fentanyl point to ‘unprecedented’ production of opioids in so-called Golden Triangle area
Description: "Myanmar has made south-east Asia’s largest-ever seizure of synthetic drugs in raids that revealed “unprecedented” production of opioids in the area, the UN has said. Between February and April, authorities swooped on labs in the lawless Kutkai area of Shan state, seizing nearly 200m meth tablets, 500kg (1,100lbs) of crystal meth, 300kg of heroin, and 3,750 litres of methyl fentanyl. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) described the haul as one of the largest and most successful counter-narcotics operations in the history of the region. “What has been unearthed through this operation is truly off the charts,” Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC south-east Asia and Pacific representative said in a statement. The production network could have been possible only with the backing of serious transnational criminal groups, he added. The raids unearthed “unprecedented” methyl fentanyl, the sign of a new trend of synthetic opioid production emerging “on a scale nobody anticipated”, said Douglas. Fifty times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times more potent than morphine, fentanyl can be lethal from as little as two milligrams – the equivalent of a few grains of sand. It has fuelled an opioid crisis in the US that killed 32,000 people in 2018. Myanmar is under pressure to stem the deluge of drugs from its border regions. Shan state is part of the “Golden Triangle” – a wedge of land cutting into Myanmar, Laos, China and Thailand and virtually untroubled by authorities despite the multi-billion dollar trade..."
Source/publisher: "Agence France-Presse" (Paris) via "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-19
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Title: Exclusive: Huge fentanyl haul seized in Golden Triangle as Asian crime gangs shift to opioids
Description: "Myanmar police say they have seized a huge haul of liquid fentanyl, the first time one of the dangerous synthetic opioids that have ravaged North America has been found in Asia’s Golden Triangle drug-producing region. In a signal that Asia’s drug syndicates have moved into the lucrative opioid market, Reuters can reveal more than 3,700 litres of methylfentanyl was discovered by anti-narcotics police near Loikan village in Shan State in northeast Myanmar. The seizure of the fentanyl derivative was part of Asia’s biggest-ever interception of illicit drugs, precursors and drug-making equipment, including 193 million methamphetamine tablets known as yaba. At 17.5 tonnes, the yaba almost equalled the amount seized in the previous two years in Myanmar. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the scale of the bust was unprecedented and Myanmar’s anti-drug authorities had “dismantled a significant network” during a two-month operation involving police and military. Also seized were almost 163,000 litres and 35.5 tonnes of drug precursors, as well as weapons. There were more than 130 arrests. Even so, the methylfentanyl discovery was an ominous indicator for the region’s illicit drug market, the U.N. agency and a Western official based in Myanmar told Reuters..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-18
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Title: Tanintharyi Region a new hotspot for crystal meth trafficking
Sub-title: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report reveals crime syndicates are seeking out new routes through Myanmar in response to law enforcement efforts in northern Thailand.
Description: "Tanintharyi Region has become a major new trafficking route for syndicates producing crystal methamphetamine in northern Shan State as they respond to law enforcement efforts in northern Thailand, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says. The UNODC said last year that Southeast Asia's drug gangs are making over US$60 billion a year pumping out record amounts of methamphetamine, with northern Shan State the epicentre of the global meth trade. But law enforcement efforts in northern Thailand have forced crime syndicates like Sam Gor to diversify their trafficking routes, UNODC said in the report Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Developments and Challenges released on Friday. This was borne out in Myanmar’s figures for seizures of crystal meth – also known as “ice” – which are often used as a proxy for production. The data shows that the proportion of crystal meth seizures in Shan State relative to the rest of Myanmar fell from 98.2 percent to 44.2pc in 2019. In contrast, seizures in Tanintharyi Region rose from negligible levels to account for 33.4pc of all seizures in Myanmar last year, based on government figures. Seizures of crystal meth were also up in Yangon (8pc of total seizures), Ayeyarwady Region (7.6pc) and Kayah State (5.3pc), again from almost nothing the previous year. Thai seizures data reflects the shift, with western rather than northern Thailand now the main gateway into Thailand, from where the crystal meth goes to places like Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Syndicates are also increasingly trafficking from Shan State into Laos and Vietnam, and from there to other markets. “We should not underestimate the flexibility of organised crime groups,” Mr Inshik Sim, a UNODC drug programme analyst, said at a live-streamed launch of the report. “They are very agile and know how to respond to changes.”..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-17
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Title: Over 35.3 mln USD worth of narcotic drugs seized in eastern Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar authorizes have seized narcotic drugs and drugs-related materials worth over 53 billion kyats (over 35.3 million U.S. dollars) in two consecutive days in Shan State, according to a release from the Commander-in-chief of Defense Services Office. The security forces confiscated 392 five-gallon containers of acid, 75 50-gallon plastic barrels of acid used in making drugs, over 2.4 million stimulants, 340 grams and five blocks of heroin, other narcotic drugs and drugs-related materials which were worth over 5 billion Kyats (over 3.3 million U.S. dollars) from two unoccupied buildings in Kaungkha Village of Kutkai Township on Monday, the office announced on late Tuesday. On Tuesday, the security troops also seized over 23.3 million stimulants and 5,280 grams of heroin and 38 five-gallon containers of acid worth over 48 billion kyats (over 32 million U.S. dollars) from the empty house near the same village, according to the release. Further investigation is underway to capture the suspects, the release said. According to a release issued by the President's Office on Tuesday, a total of 1,002 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,544 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of Feb. 29 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-05
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Title: Over 4.9 million of stimulants seized in Myanmar’s western state
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized over 4.9 million of stimulants in Rakhine State, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on tip-offs, the joint anti-narcotic police force confiscated over 4.9 million of stimulants from a warehouse along with one suspect in Maung Daw Township on Monday. The township police filed a case against the suspect and further investigation is underway under the country’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. Myanmar authorities also detained 19,200 litres of Hydrochloric acid, 25,600 litres of Acetone and 25,600 litres of Ethyl Acetate from three trucks in Mong Naung Township of Shan State on Sunday, the release added. According to a release issued by the President’s Office on Tuesday, a total of 1,002 drug-related cases were registered across Myanmar while 1,544 suspects were charged in connection with the cases as of Feb. 29 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department in 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-04
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Title: Podcast: The cost of getting clean
Summary: "The rise of drug addiction in Kachin State has prompted dozens of private treatment centres to open up, promoting physical and spiritual wellbeing. This week we hear the personal stories of some...
Description: "The rise of drug addiction in Kachin State has prompted dozens of private treatment centres to open up, promoting physical and spiritual wellbeing. This week we hear the personal stories of some of those addicts receiving treatment and we look at the personal and financial cost of getting clean. Listen in Burmese and Jinghpaw..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-02
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Title: Large amount of narcotic drugs seized in eastern Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized large amount of narcotic drugs including 3.3 kilograms of heroin, 8 kilograms of opium and 580,000 stimulant tablets in Shan State, a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) said on Monday. Acting on a tip-off, an anti-drug squad stopped and searched a car that was travelling from Mongmit to Mabein Township on Sunday. Heroin worth 627 million kyats (418,000 U.S. dollars), soap boxes filled with opium worth 64 million kyats (42,666 U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 1.16 billion kyats (7.7 million U.S. dollars) were seized from the car. The township police had filed a case against the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-18
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Title: 6.6kg of heroin, stimulants seized in Northern Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar authorities have seized a large haul of narcotic drugs including 6.6 kg of heroin and 89,300 stimulant tablets in Sagaing region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Sunday. The confiscation was made by a joint police force in Indaw Township on Friday. Soap boxes filled with heroin worth 660 million kyats (US$440,000) and stimulants worth 446.5 million kyats (US$297,666) were seized from a car. The township police filed a case against the suspect who ran away from the scene under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. The seizure also comes after Myanmar authorities had seized a large haul of narcotic drugs including 22kg of heroin and 549,000 stimulant tablets in Mandalay region on Thursday. The seizure was made by a joint police force in Kyaukse township on Monday. That times, the haul saw soapboxes filled with heroin worth 1.54 billion kyats (US$1.02mil) and stimulants worth 2.74 billion kyats (US$1.83mil) were confiscated from a car and a bush nearby where the car parked in the township..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Selangor)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
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Title: 22 kg of heroin, stimulants seized in central Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized a large haul of narcotic drugs including 22 kilograms of heroin and 549,000 stimulant tablets in Mandalay region, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday. The seizure was made by a joint police force in Kyaukse township on Monday. Soap boxes filled with heroin worth 1.54 billion kyats (1.02 million U.S. dollars) and stimulants worth 2.74 billion kyats (1.83 million U.S. dollars) were confiscated from a car and a bush nearby where the car parked in the township. The township police filed a case to capture the suspect who was absent at the scene under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. According to a recent release from the President's Office, a total of 971 drug-related cases were logged across Myanmar while 1,503 suspects were charged as of Feb. 8 this year, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018. The authorities are striving the best to fight drug trafficking and urge public members to directly inform drug trafficking-related cases to the department as well as the Home Affairs Ministry and relevant region and state governments, the release said..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-13
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Title: Myanmar Opium Cultivation in Decline: UN Report
Summary: "Opium cultivation in Myanmar decreased last year, continuing the downward trend that started in 2014 due in part to the continuing shift in the regional drug market towards synthetic drugs,...
Description: "Opium cultivation in Myanmar decreased last year, continuing the downward trend that started in 2014 due in part to the continuing shift in the regional drug market towards synthetic drugs, according to a new UN survey. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar Opium Survey 2019, released on Tuesday in Naypyitaw, the amount of land cultivated for opium dropped 11 percent in 2019 to 33,100 hectares (ha), continuing the downward trend from 57,600 ha in 2014. Decreases were observed in Shan State’s northern, eastern and southern areas with drops of 7, 8 and 17 percent respectively, but cultivation increased slightly in Kachin State, up 15 percent from 2018. Despite the declines, the UNODC said that “the highest levels of cultivation continue to take place in unstable and conflict prone areas of Shan and Kachin.” It added that opium cultivation, heroin production and trafficking, and the evolving illicit drug economy, including heroin and synthetic drugs, “are affecting peace and stability in the country and surrounding border areas.” Shan and Kachin states are Myanmar’s main opium producing areas and UNODC focused its 2019 survey on these states. In 2018, Chin and Kayah states were included in the survey. UNODC conducts the Myanmar Opium Survey jointly with the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) under Myanmar’s Ministry of Home Affairs..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-05
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Title: Poppy growing and production declines in Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar’s illegal poppy growing has declined by 11 per cent and poppy production by over two per cent, said Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Major General Aung Thu, at a ceremony to release the Myanmar poppy production survey report, held at Horizon Lake View Hotel in Nay Pyi Taw on February. Last year, there were 33,100 hectares of poppy plantations in Myanmar. In 2006, the illegal poppy growing and production reached the lowest. But the period between 2007 and 2013 saw an increase in, the poppy production and the period between 2014 and 2019, a decline. “There were 55,000 hectors of poppy plantations in 2015, 41,000 hectares in 2017, 37,300 hectares in 2018 and 33,100 hectares in 2019. Poppy growth declined by 11 per cent in 2019 compared with 2018,” the deputy minister added. “Myanmar’s poppy production reached 647 metric tons in 2015, 550 metric tons in 2017, 520 metric tons in 2018 and 508 metric tons in 2019. The poppy production declined by over two per cent in 2019 compared with 2018,” the deputy minister said. According to the UNODC’s report 2019, Myanmar’s ranking dropped to the third position in the World Drug Report 2019 from the second largest opium producer in the world, he said..."
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-05
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Title: Chinese police seize over 151kg of drugs in border province
Summary: "Police have captured three suspects and seized 151.22kg of drugs in a major cross-border drug trafficking case, local authorities said on Saturday (Feb 1). After receiving a tip-off that a drug...
Description: "Police have captured three suspects and seized 151.22kg of drugs in a major cross-border drug trafficking case, local authorities said on Saturday (Feb 1). After receiving a tip-off that a drug gang was planning to transport drugs into China, police sent a task force to the China-Myanmar border city of Lincang in southwest China's Yunnan Province to investigate the case. On Jan 14, police caught three suspects in Lincang's Mengding Township, with methamphetamine weighing 151.22 kg seized from the bottom of a truck driven by a suspect. The suspects are under criminal detention. Further investigation is underway. ON a separate issue, a senior official from the Thai Ministry of Commerce have told reporters that he is worried that the continuing strong Thai baht currency will again affect Thailand's border trade with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Last year, Thailand missed the target of cross-border trade volume due mainly to the baht appreciation; this year the baht has not weakened, said Keerati Rushchano, said director-general of the ministry's Foreign Trade Department. The border trade in 2019 totalled 1.33 trillion baht (US$43.1bil), a 3.43% drop, he added..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Selangor)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-02
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Title: Myanmar reports over 950 drug-related cases in 2 years
Description: "Myanmar has reported 957 drug-related cases, involving 1,480 suspects within two years, Xinhua reported quoting state-run media reported. As of 25 January, this year, the authorities have seized over 7.49 kg of heroin, 1.34 kg of methamphetamine (ICE), 40.3 kg of opium, 462,707 stimulants tablets and other drugs, respectively, since the formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department on June 26, 2018. The authorities are stepping up efforts to fight against drug trafficking and urge the public to directly report drug trafficking-related cases..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-30
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Title: Over 20 kg of raw opium busted in E. Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar police busted 21.35 kg of raw opium in the same township of Shan state, said a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday. Acting on tip-off, a joint police force seized 4.5 kg of raw opium and some stimulants from a house in Taung Thone Lone (Upper) village in Tachileik township on Tuesday morning. On the same day, 16.85 kg of raw opium and 13,500 stimulant tablets were confiscated from another house in the same village later. Two suspects were charged in connection with the cases under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law. According to a press release issued by the President Office on Monday, a total of 1,411 people were arrested in connection with 896 drug-related cases from June 26, 2018 to Dec. 21, 2019. On June 26 last year, Myanmar government announced formation of the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department to accept and respond to reports on drug abuses and related cases from the public. The authorities are stepping up the efforts to fight against drug trafficking and urge the public to directly inform drug trafficking cases to the department, as well as Home Affairs Ministry and relevant state and region governments, the release said..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-13
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Title: Over 3kg of heroin, stimulants seized in eastern Myanmar
Description: "Myanmar anti-narcotic police seized 3.74 kg of heroin and some stimulants in Shan state, said a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Friday (Jan 10). The seizures were made in Lashio and Muse townships on Thursday. Acting on tip-off, a joint narcotic police force confiscated 1.98 kg of heroin and 246,000 stimulant tablets from a car travelling on Muse-Namhkan road in Muse township on Thursday afternoon. In the evening of the same day, soap boxes filled with 1.76 kg of heroin were seized from a vehicle on Muse-Mandalay road during the joint police force's anti-narcotic operation. Three suspects were charged in connection with the cases. According tointernational reports, Myanmar’s remote mountains and valleys have played a central role in the regional supply chains for illicit drugs..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Malaysia)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-11
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Title: The Golden Triangle Opium Trade: An Overview
Description: "Contrary to popular belief, the poppy has not always been a major cash crop in the Golden Triangle—and nor has the sale and consumption of opium always been illegal. Prior to World War Two, all countries in Southeast Asia has government-controlled opium monopolies, not unlike the tobacco monopolies today. What was illegal was to smuggle opium and to trade without a licence. Most local addicts were ethnic Chinese, who had migrated to Southeast Asia's urban centres in the 19th and early 20th centuries—and brought with them the opium smoking habit from their old homes in China. In the beginning, Thailand (then Siam) had actually tried to stop the practice. In 1811, King Loetlahnaphalai (Rama II) had promulgated Siam's first formal ban on selling and consuming opium. In 1839, King Nangklao (Rama III) reiterated the prohibition, and he introduced the death penalty for major opium traffickers. These efforts, however, were doomed to failure. Ethnic Chinese traffickers could be arrested and punished—but a much more powerful institution was pushing Siam to open its doors to the drug: the British East India Company, which had initiated large-scale cultivation in its Indian colonies, and was looking for new export markets in the region. Thailand was never a colony, but that did not mean that it escaped the scourges that had fol- lowed foreign rule in neighbouring countries. Finally, in 1852, Siam's revered King Mongkut (Rama IV) bowed to British pressures. He established a royal opium franchise which was "farmed out" to local entrepreneurs, mostly wealthy Chinese traders. Opium, lottery, gambling and alcohol permits were up for grabs. By the end of the 19th century, taxes on these monopolies provided between 40 and 50 per cent of Siam's government revenue.1 The American researcher Alfred McCoy, who has written extensively about the origin and evo- lution of Southeast Asia's drug trade, describes how the importance of the opium business gradu- ally increased..."
Source/publisher: Bertil Lintner
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-09
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Title: Drug Trafficking, Porous Borders And Human Insecurity: Transnational Security And Democratic Transition In Myanmar
Description: "Since the end of the Cold War there has been increased recognition of non-traditional security threats, such as drug trafficking, as contributors to instability within and amongst states. Myanmar (formerly Burma), the hub of the ‘Golden Triangle’ drug trade, has been a state in constant conflict since its independence in 1948. Using the theoretical framework of human security, this thesis analyses the impact of the drug trade on both Myanmar’s society and its transnational impacts. First, this thesis examines the extent to which the drug trade in Myanmar permeates to other states through porous borders creating a situation of transnational human insecurity. Secondly, Myanmar’s current democratic transition is examined to determine how the state of Myanmar is undergoing changes in its state- building process. Finally, these two themes are intersected to demonstrate how illicit narcotics trafficking are hampering Myanmar’s transition towards a liberal democracy. This thesis provides new insight into the problems posed by transnational narcotics trafficking and human insecurity to the democratisation process..."
Source/publisher: University of Southern Queensland (Queensland)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-06
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Title: Mekong countries and the UN join forces to fight drug scourge
Sub-title: Ministers on Friday agreed to regularly share intelligence and carry out more coordinated anti-trafficking operations.
Description: "Five Southeast Asian countries, China, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) agreed on Friday to improve intelligence sharing and law enforcement operations to fight drug trafficking in the region by transnational crime groups. Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle - northern Myanmar and parts of Thailand and Laos - has long been a hub of illicit drug production and trafficking. More: Asia's Meth Boom Golden Triangle's drug production surges amid opioid worries Has the decade-old war on drugs in Asia succeeded? While opium cultivation and heroin refining have fallen in the past decade, the area is now at the heart of the Asia-Pacific methamphetamine trade, which the UNODC estimates to be worth as much as $61.4bn in 2018, up from an estimated $15bn just five years earlier..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-15
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Title: Asia’s drug ‘kingpin’ more Hollywood than reality
Description: "The Asia-Pacific drug trade has a new kingpin, at least according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and some Western anti-narcotics officials. His name: Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian citizen also known as Sam Gor, or Brother No. 3 in Cantonese, who is reputedly the leader of a gang that controls most of the region’s illegal and wide-reaching methamphetamine trade. In October, Reuters published an in-depth investigation exposing Tse’s new “Asian meth syndicate”, which according to report controls the bulk of the region’s rampant trade in the narcotic. The Reuters report referred to him as “Asia’s most-wanted man” who runs a “vast multinational drug trafficking syndicate” in alliance with “five of Asia’s triad groups.” The UNODC, the report said, estimates Tse’s syndicate’s 2018 revenues at US$8-17.7 billion in 2018, with Asian sales reaching from Japan to New Zealand. Tse, who’s whereabouts are unknown, has not responded to the allegations..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-01
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Title: Myanmar policeman arrested for crystal meth switch
Summary: " A Myanmar policeman has been arrested after switching 64kg of seized crystal methamphetamine with salts loosely resembling the party drug known as Ice, officials said Tuesday (Jun 4). Officers...
Description: " A Myanmar policeman has been arrested after switching 64kg of seized crystal methamphetamine with salts loosely resembling the party drug known as Ice, officials said Tuesday (Jun 4). Officers stumbled across the suspect packages of confiscated Ice around a week ago as they carried out an inventory of seized narcotics at a police station ahead of an annual burning to mark an international day against drugs on Jun 26. "Sixty-four packages out of 103 were fake," Deputy Police Colonel, Myint Swe, chief of Kengtung district police force in Shan State told AFP, adding each package weighed 1kg (2.2 pounds). A kilogram of Ice is worth around 20 million kyats (US$13,000) locally, giving the pilfered product a value of around US$830,000 inside Myanmar. It fetches several times more the further it travels from source. Police-sergeant Myint Naing was arrested on Sunday, several hours drive away, and had been flown back to Kengtung for interrogation, police said..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-29
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Title: Myanmar wipes out illegal opium fields in 8 towns in eastern state
Description: "Myanmar authorities have destroyed a total of 133.5 acres (54 hectares) illegally grown opium poppy plantations in eastern Shan state, said a statement of the Home Ministry late Wednesday. The opium poppy plantations, destroyed on Tuesday, include those grown in Pinlaung, Hopone, Pekon, Hsihseng, Maukmai, Mongnai and Mongpan towns. Between the period from Oct. 28 to Nov. 23, the authorities had wiped out 177.6 hectares illegally grown opium poppy plantations in several villages in the same state. Opium destruction is part of the government's efforts to stem opium production in the country. According to government statistics, poppy was cultivated on 37,300 hectares of land and 520 tons were produced in Myanmar in 2018, down by 9 percent and 5.45 percent respectively as compared with 2017 when poppy was cultivated on 41,000 hectares and 550 tons were produced..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-28
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Title: Booming regional meth industry – Thailand, Myanmar, China and Laos
Description: "A UN Office of Drugs and Crime report released last week states that the methamphetamine trade is now worth between US$30-61 billion per year in East and South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh. That figure is up from US$15 billion a year, nearly a decade ago, the last time the UNODC estimated the value of the methamphetamine trade in the region. Better enforcement, co-operation with neighbouring governments, increased manpower, more sophisticated surveillance and increased numbers of seizures have happened whilst the trade in meth has blossomed in the region. Methamphetamine pills (aka. yaba in Thailand) are now being sold at highly discounted prices, and the well publicised massive seizures and interceptions do little to dent the operations of highly sophisticated and tech-savvy drug traffickers. Even the crystal methamphetamine (ice) from the region is feeding demand as far away as New Zealand. Experts say the boom in South East Asia’s methamphetamine industry is the result of a series of regional and political factors, which have seen Myanmar’s lawless Shan State emerge as the regional meth factory. The Shan State is in Myanmar’s north-east and borders Thailand, Laos and China..."
Source/publisher: "The Thaiger" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-22
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Title: 14kg heroin smuggled from Myanmar seized
Description: "New Delhi: In a major haul of drugs, Delhi Police’s Sepcial Cell has seized 14 kilograms of heroin worth Rs50 crore. Two Uttar Pradesh-based smugglers have been arrested in this connection. The contraband had been sent from Myanmar via Manipur. According to DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, the arrested men were identified as Sanjeet Kumar Singh (34) from Varanasi and Pradeep Yadav (24) from Gazipur. The cops are now looking for a woman, who is allegedly heading this syndicate. Recently, the northern range of the cell had received information about this cartel and deployed informers around Manipur to develop intelligence. The cops got to know that the woman kingpin “Didi,” who is a native of Nepal, was based in Manipur..."
Source/publisher: "The Times of India" (Oslo)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-20
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Title: Opium poppy cultivation and sustainable development in Shan State, Myanmar 2019
Description: "Poppy‐growing villages face serious challenges to meet Sustainable Development Goals: About one in nine households in Shan State were directly involved in opium poppy cultivation in 2018, a similar situation to 2016. This means opium poppy continues to be an integral part of the state’s economy. The result is one of the findings from UNODC’s expanded data‐gathering operation in Myanmar. For the first time, this report can draw on more than 1,500 households interviewed, as well as interviews with the headmen in 599 villages. The extra information has enabled a socio‐economic analysis of opium cultivation in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The research reveals that villages where opium poppy is cultivated have lower levels of development than other villages. Disparities are most noticeable with regards to security, environment, job opportunities and infrastructure. And there is a broad link between levels of development and poppy cultivation – East Shan is the least developed area and has the highest levels of engagement in poppy cultivation. However, a closer look shows that there are important variations within the region that are key to understanding drug control and development challenges. Non‐state groups control many poppy villages, suggesting a link between governance and opium poppy cultivation: Poppy villages were in general more likely than non‐poppy villages to be under the control of militias and other non‐state groups, according to surveys of village headmen. Some 18 per cent of poppy‐growing villages were beyond government control, compared with 9 per cent of non‐poppy villages. This link was strongest in North Shan, where reported conflicts between government and anti‐government forces were most frequent. In North Shan, more than half of poppy villages were controlled by militias or other forces, compared with 12 per cent of non‐poppy villages. There was no significant difference in the level of perceived safety between poppy and non‐poppy villages – less than half of village headmen said their village was ‘safe’ or ‘very safe’ regardless of the presence of opium poppy..."
Source/publisher: UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( Vienna) via Reliefweb (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-20
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Title: More ‘ice’ seized in Mekong region in 2019: UNODC
Sub-title: The amount of crystal methamphetamine, or “ice,” seized in the Mekong region so far this year has already surpassed last year’s total, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Description: "The UNODC said that record amounts of tablets and crystal meth were seized across the region in 2018, and prices declined to levels last seen 20 years ago, indicating extremely high levels of availability. In Thailand alone, authorities seized 515 million meth tablets in 2018 – 17 times the total amount for the Mekong region a decade ago. Thailand also seized more than 18 tonnes of crystal meth, more than the East and Southeast Asia regional total of five years ago, according to a statement released on Friday at a ministerial meeting of the Mekong countries – Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The two-day meeting in Bangkok between the countries’ ministers and UNODC representatives was arranged following recurring reports of significant increases in the production, trafficking and use of illicit drugs and precursor chemicals across the region, and confirmation that major transnational organised crime syndicates have started operating in the so-called Golden Triangle, the lawless area where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet. The Golden Triangle has been associated with drug production and trafficking for several decades, but the level of synthetic drugs, in particular meth, being traced to the area is unprecedented..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-18
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Title: China targets one of Asia's biggest meth cartels: deputy drug tsar
Description: "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..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-16
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Title: Myanmar seizes largest crystal meth haul this year
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized more than 1,700 kilogrammes (3,750 pounds) of crystal meth worth nearly US$29 million in a multi-state operation this week, the biggest haul of 2019 in a country widely believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine producer. High-grade crystal meth, or "ice", is smuggled out of Myanmar via sophisticated networks to lucrative developed markets as far away as Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Authorities have been nabbing larger hauls in recent months of ice and lower quality meth pills, known in the region as "yaba", which experts say are produced in Myanmar's conflict-ridden eastern Shan State. This week's operation started on March 24 when the Myanmar Navy stopped a boat with seven people onboard off the coast of Kawthaung Township, the southernmost tip of the country, and found 1,737 kilogrammes of ice, state-run newspaper Myanmar Alinn reported Saturday. "It's the biggest seizure this year," an official from the National Drug Control Department told AFP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. Using information gleaned from a satellite phone, a GPS navigator, and three mobile phones found onboard, authorities raided the house of the owner of the drugs in Yangon the next day, arresting his wife and confiscating seven bank books..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Title: Myanmar's zero-tolerance drug policy is doomed to fail
Sub-title: Myanmar is not waging a war on drugs.
Description: "It is waging a war on the people who consume illicit drugs, and those who sell them in relatively small quantities. In doing so, it is punishing the victims of state policies that have allowed some organisations, including militias in Shan State that are allied to the Tatmadaw, to produce massive quantities of drugs – notably yaba, crystal meth and opium – within Myanmar’s borders with impunity. As a recent International Crisis Group report, Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State, makes clear, there is little appetite among law enforcement to target those who are making billions of dollars a year from illicit drug production and spreading the drug scourge from Shan State to as far as Japan and Australia. There are no easy solutions to the drug production problem. The least the government can do though is to refrain from inflicting further harm on those whose lives have already been affected by drugs. However, Myanmar finds itself in a situation where not only is drug production ballooning, but prisons are overflowing with drug users and low-level dealers; last year, the Attorney General’s office reported to the national legislature that over half of all prisoners had been incarcerated for drug-related offences, resulting in overcrowding, understaffing and a budget blowout for the Department of Corrections. Other government officials have estimated that up to 70 percent of inmates could be in prison for drug offences. This is the result of adopting a zero-tolerance drug policy in a country where impunity and corruption are rife. It was always doomed to fail..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Title: Poppy cultivation down, but drug trade grows
Description: "THE United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) has reported that the land planted with opium poppy fell by 10 percent last year, but local law analysts said the illegal drug trade continues to grow. According to the report, an estimated 37,300 hectares of opium poppy were planted in Myanmar last year, down from 41,000 hectares in 2017. Shan and Kachin states were the top producers of opium poppy with a combined 36,100 hectares, while Chin and Kayah states grew a combined 1200 hectares. But a spokesman for the country’s anti-narcotics force said the number of drug-related cases in the country increased last year. “Last year there were 13,000 drug cases brought to court and 18,000 people were arrested, much higher than the 8000 cases and 13,000 arrested in 2017,” said Police Chief Zaw Lin of the central anti-drug force. He said the increase in the number of drug-related arrests and interdiction could be attributed to a centre opened by President U Win Myint last June that provided secure lines of communication for people with tips. The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based security think tank, said in a report last week that Shan State is now a global hub for the production of heroin and methamphetamine, with China as the main source of the precursor chemicals. The ICG urged the government and neighbouring countries, especially China, to help in the difficult fight to stop the drug trade in Shan State, warning that it could dominate the area’s economy..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Title: Shan restricted areas pave way for drugs, official says
Sub-title: Among the regions and states that marked International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26 by torching seized drugs and drug-related material worth more than US$250 million, Shan State destroyed the largest quantity, some US$150 ....
Description: "“Drugs worth more than US$250m seized across the country were destroyed, and more than half of it was from Shan State as we burnt drugs worth over US$150m. This is because Shan State is a hub for illegal drug production,” said Shan State Police Brigadier General Zaw Khin Aung. He said Shan State contributed the largest numbers to the seizures and arrests across the country in terms of drug users, drugs, and raw materials for drug production because there are restricted areas in the state that offer an opportunity for criminals to carry out their illicit trade. The state’s police said that although poppy cultivation has declined compared to previous years, the seized amount of drugs has increased. While some 5489 hectares of poppy fields were destroyed in 2015, the number has been steadily declining over the past three years. In 2016, 3380ha were destroyed, 2411ha in 2017, and 2144ha last year. According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there were about 41000ha of poppy fields in Myanmar in 2017 and about 37300ha in 2018. The production rate of opium was 550 tonnes in 2017 and 520 tonnes in 2018..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Title: Two suspected female drug couriers arrested in Tachileik
Sub-title: Two women suspected of being drug couriers were arrested over the weekend in Shan State after they were caught in possession of thousands of amphetamine tablets, police said.
Description: "The suspects who were riding a motorcycle were arrested after they were stopped at a random checkpoint near the Mone Lite Village in Tachileik Township on Saturday and found to be carrying 50,000 tablets of amphetamine with a street value amounting to K50 million(US$32,700). The two suspects, 20 and 17, admitted that they agreed to transport the drug in exchange for payment from a drug dealer in the area..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Title: Week in Review: Myanmar still a drug country
Description: "This week, a Myanmar Times special report detailed a growing problem with methamphetamine in eastern Shan State. Despite unprecedented record seizures of meth in Myanmar in recent years, the industry is still going strong in the Golden Triangle. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also noted that opium poppy cultivation has been decreasing yearly but Myanmar remains the second largest producer of opium in the world. As a regional effort cracks down on illicit drugs, crime gangs seems to be moving from cultivating poppy fields, which are easily located, to the manufacture of methamphetamine because it is easier to hide from the law. The International Crisis Group released a report on January 8 classifying Shan State as one of the largest global producers of meth. In its report, “Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State,” the global security think tank noted that the country’s proximity to China and the ongoing conflicts with armed ethnic groups provide a breeding ground for the production and export of narcotics. Land Law takes effect: Monday was the deadline for anyone occupying or using vacant, fallow, or virgin land to apply for a permit to use the land for 30 years or face eviction and up to two years in jail under the Vacant, Fallow, and Virgin (VFV) Land Management Law. The law has been criticised by an armed ethnic group for affecting millions of small farmers, especially in ethnic borderlands, and sparking fears of eviction and prison. As expected, on the first day of the law taking effect, local government officials and companies started evicting villagers from disputed lands, according to lawyers in southern Myanmar. Two cases are currently ongoing..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Title: Drug Addiction Rises in Myanmar's Kachin State
Description: "The clanking sound of leg irons shackled around the ankles of the unwilling patients signals the arrival of a small group of heroin addicts at the mess hall located inside a fortified Pat Ja San compound near Laiza in Myanmar’s Kachin state, located in the country's north along the border with China. The compound is one of 28 run in Kachin and neighboring Shan state by Pat Ja San, a Christian anti-drug vigilante group. International observers say treatments at the rehabilitation centers are rudimentary and brutal compared to modern Western methods. The detoxification program often includes locking patients in barred rooms and confining their legs to wooden stocks to prevent escape during the initial treatment when addicts experience the painful effects of withdrawal. Methadone is sometimes available, but medical training for the workers and access to modern drugs are limited, especially in the rural areas where military battles persist. 'Drug is everywhere': Lahtaw Ah Li, 22, is a new arrival. At 14, he began working at a jade mine in Hpakant township in Kachin state, where most of the industry is concentrated, scavenging through discarded rock piles for bits of the valuable gem. A few years later, he started using heroin to cope with the long hours. “The drug is for sale everywhere around the mine sites, and it’s cheap to buy," Ah Li said about heroin, which costs about 75 cents per injection..."
Source/publisher: "Voice of America (VOA)" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-07
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Title: UN report on Myanmar opium crop criticized
Sub-title: Kachin Independence Army denies UNODC claims and says crops grown in government-controlled areas
Description: "The recently-released “Myanmar Opium Survey 2018” by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) distorts reality, accuses ethnic rebels who are not involved in the drugs trade for being responsible for the scourge while turning a blind eye to official complicity in the trade. That is the basic message in a commentary published on March 5 by the Transnational Institute (TNI), a Dutch-based international research and advocacy group. The UNODC report claimed that “in Kachin State, the highest density of poppy cultivation took place in areas under the control or influence of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).” That assertion prompted the Kachin rebels to issue a statement on February 14 pointing out that the UNODC’s own map in its report showed that most opium growing areas in Kachin State were located not in areas controlled by the KIA, but a government-recognized Border Guard Force, allied with the Myanmar military. TNI states that “there is presently no substantial opium cultivation” in rebel-held territory. The TNI has even criticized the KIA and Pat Jasan, a community-based, anti-drugs Kachin vigilante organization “for being overly repressive towards opium farmers and people who use drugs, rather than being in any way permissive.” The TNI goes to state that the UNODC claims that the highest density of opium cultivation in northern Shan State is in “areas under the control or influence of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army,” a Kokang guerilla army that does not control any territory, while opium is actually being grown and traded in areas that are controlled by local militias backed by the Myanmar military..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-01
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Title: Rohingya man arrested in Bangladesh after $5m drug haul
Sub-title: Special police staged raid on a beach in Cox's Bazar following tip that trawler carrying drugs would land there.
Description: "The spokesman said 800,000 pills were found in sacks in the trawler and one Rohingya suspect was detained while several others escaped. About 740,000 Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh after a Myanmar military crackdown in August 2017 and drug dealing has become a growing problem in the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar where they live. The seizure was the biggest made this year of the methamphetamine pills, known as yaba, which have become a popular drug among young people in the nation of 168 million. Since a crackdown was launched last year, more than 500 suspected drug traffickers - including at least 25 Rohingya - have been shot dead by police and security forces..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
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Title: KIO releases a drug survey to counter UNODC report
Sub-title: Opium cultivation in Kachin and Shan states is double the amount reported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and it is all in Tatmadaw (military)-controlled areas, according to a report released by the Kachin Independence Organisatio
Description: "The KIO’s Drug Eradication Committee unveiled the report on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on Wednesday. In its report, the KIO said that it had conducted surveys in 19 townships in Kachin and northern Shan during the 2018-2019 opium growing season, and it had found 6918 hectares of opium fields in Kachin, double the 3400 hectares estimated by the UNODC in its 2018 Myanmar Opium Survey. The KIO said it found some opium fields in Puta-o and Sumprabum, areas of Kachin that were not surveyed by UNODC. The UNODC report only mentions the Danai and Kanpaiti areas as opium-growing regions in Kachin, it said. The report also said there were 3192.4 hectares of opium fields in five townships in northern Shan. As in Kachin, all opium growing is taking place in areas controlled by the military, their Border Guard Force and allied militia, the KIO said..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
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Title: Shan group slams UN opium report
Sub-title: The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) has rejected the findings of the UN opium survey for 2018, saying it contains errors and is demanding a correction.
Description: "The armed ethnic group based in northern Shan issued the demand in an open letter on Monday to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). “[The report] is wrong and seriously misleading,” Lt. Col Sai Harn, head of the RCSS’s drug eradication programme, said in the letter, a copy of which was provided to The Myanmar Times. The RCSS objected to the agency’s map of armed groups that shows a large presence of the government-allied militia in southern Shan State, including in areas where there is a lot of opium poppy cultivation. The report made no mention of opium poppy cultivation in areas controlled by the Tatmadaw (military) and allied militias. It said the area of opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar had dropped 10 percent to 37,300 hectares in 2018, down from 41,000 hectares in 2017 and that Shan continues to be a major grower, accounting for almost 90pc of the total. The southern, eastern and northern portions of the state accounted for 38pc, 27pc and 23pc of total cultivation, respectively. The RCSS insisted that the map of armed groups in Myanmar on page seven of the report wrongly designated areas under the government-allied Pa-O National Organisation in southwest Shan as belonging to the Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLA). These areas are shown on the map on page six as having a lot of opium poppy cultivation..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
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Title: Shan armed group launches anti-drug campaign, kills 8
Summary: "The UWSA operation on Tuesday and Wednesday in northern Shan netted 4.8 million methamphetamine tablets and neutralised a drug-trafficking syndicate, a spokesman for the group said. U Nyi Rang,...
Sub-title: The United Wa State Army in Shan State, which has been accused of coddling drug dealers in the areas under its control, killed eight suspected drug traffickers and seized millions of methamphetamine tablets last week.
Description: "The UWSA operation on Tuesday and Wednesday in northern Shan netted 4.8 million methamphetamine tablets and neutralised a drug-trafficking syndicate, a spokesman for the group said. U Nyi Rang, UWSA spokesperson, said nine drug traffickers were arrested by an anti-drug task force. “We ordered the gang to surrender, but they refused. They began firing at our men so we fired back.” He said the UWSA had dispatched fighters to the Thai-Myanmar border after receiving a tip-off about a drug operation in the area on September 10. U Nyi Rang said some gang members were able to flee across the Thai border during the clashes. He gave no details about the traffickers but said they were from another Myanmar ethnic group. The UWSA, the largest ethnic armed group in Myanmar, is based in northern and eastern Shan, and has a reputation for trafficking illegal drugs all over the world. The Thai government has often accused the group of trafficking drugs across the Thai border. The UWSA has denied all accusations, saying that the drug traffickers operating in their territory were from other parts of Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-07
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Title: Myanmar's opium farmers cling on to lucrative crop
Description: "Fields of purple opium poppy stretch across the pastures and peaks of mountainous eastern Myanmar, with many farmers reluctant to give up the profitable cash crop in spite of incentives offered. Myanmar is the second biggest source of opium in the world after Afghanistan, with Shan state its main production hub. AFP hiked up the steep mountainside towering over the small town of Hopong, just a few dozen kilometres from tourist hotspot Inle Lake. The farmland closest to the town boasts fields of coffee, potatoes and corn, and provides a lifeline for the scattered villages. But scale the ridge and the far side exposes a blanket of purple reaching up to an altitude of some 2,400 metres (8,000 feet). Each day men and women from the surrounding villages, home to the Pa-O and other Shan ethnic minority groups, take to the fields of the illegal flower. They harvest its addictive sap into cans that can fetch up to $100 each, sums that far exceed the profits possible from other produce..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "The Jakarta Post" (Indonesia)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-05
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Title: UWSA Kills 6 More Drug Traffickers, Struggles to Police Thai-Myanmar Border
Summary: "Six more alleged members of an illegal drug trafficking group were killed by United Wa State Army (UWSA) forces on Wednesday as the ethnic armed group attempted to hunt down drug traffickers who...
Description: "Six more alleged members of an illegal drug trafficking group were killed by United Wa State Army (UWSA) forces on Wednesday as the ethnic armed group attempted to hunt down drug traffickers who escaped clashes on Tuesday near the Thai-Myanmar border in eastern Shan State. “We killed six of them and detained one,” Nyi Rang, a spokesperson for the UWSA in Lashio, told The Irrawaddy on Friday. The incident broke out at 5 p.m. as members of the UWSA encountered the alleged drug traffickers and told them to surrender. The traffickers refused and then reportedly attacked the UWSA forces. Nyi Rang said his troops seized around 3 million methamphetamine tablets during the incident. Some of the drug traffickers escaped and the UWSA said it is continuing to search the nearby mountains and jungles. The UWSA controls an area in eastern Shan State that shares a 400-kilometer border with Thailand, but Nyi Rang said his troops are unable to police illegal drug smuggling across such a large area..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-05
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Title: Drug lab raids in Myanmar's meth capital met with artillery fire
Summary: " Raids on jungle drug labs have been met with heavy artillery fire, Myanmar narcotics police said Thursday, in an area riddled with armed groups accused of pumping out much of the world's...
Description: " Raids on jungle drug labs have been met with heavy artillery fire, Myanmar narcotics police said Thursday, in an area riddled with armed groups accused of pumping out much of the world's methamphetamine. Myanmar is under increasingly intense pressure from its neighbours to close down the meth labs in lawless parts of Shan State, the heart of the notorious "Golden Triangle". A major crackdown kicked off last month in Kutkai Township, northern Shan State, the Tatmadaw has said, where an entwined network of drug lords, ethnic rebel groups and security forces are accused of running a shadow drug economy worth billions of dollars. Huge stockpiles of chemicals as well as millions of dollars of ice, the highly addictive crystalised form of meth, were seized in one raid on homespun labs buried deep in the jungle. "The crackdown is ongoing," a senior police officer from the anti-drugs squad told AFP, requesting anonymity. The Tatmadaw and drug police initially conducted raids in the area on July 21 but were repelled by "heavy artillery" at the site, the officer said..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
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Title: Makeshift centre helps drug addicts kick habit in Shan
Sub-title: It was utterly senseless, calling it Yangon Village Centre when it’s hundreds of miles away from the country’s economic capital. But then, everything in the place defies logic. Senseless.
Description: "The roofed enclosure was the size of two 40-foot steel cargo containers patched together with galvanised iron sheets and wood. The wooden door was locked with an iron chain. Emblazoned on the door were the words, “No one will get addicted because of me,” written in white on a red background. Whatever that means. Inside the building was just a huge open space with a concrete floor where there were dozens of people. Some were sleeping on worn-out beds, while others were just staring at the ceiling, unmindful of the pair of prying eyes staring at them inquisitively. Still others sat on their beds, or on the floor, lost in their own thoughts, indifferent to the misery around them. Moving closer to the gaunt, dishevelled men lying on their beds, one couldn’t help but notice the chains around their ankles..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
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Title: UWSA Kills 2 Drug Traffickers, Arrests 8 Near Thai-Myanmar Border
Summary: "Two armed men from an illegal drug trafficking gang were killed and eight others were arrested by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) on Tuesday after fighting briefly broke out between the two groups...
Description: "Two armed men from an illegal drug trafficking gang were killed and eight others were arrested by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) on Tuesday after fighting briefly broke out between the two groups in eastern Shan State near the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the UWSA. UWSA spokesperson Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy that one of the eight detainees was wounded and that some people escaped during the clash and crossed the border into Thailand. The clash broke out at a village in Hwe Aw Township after the UWSA seized 1.8 million methamphetamine tablets and one gun. The UWSA received a tip last month that a group of illegal drug traffickers was using its territory to transport methamphetamine tablets into Thailand. The UWSA tightened security along the border with Thailand starting on Sept. 10. On Tuesday, the UWSA learned that a group had entered into its territory. When UWSA forces attempted to stop and search the group, the traffickers allegedly attacked the UWSA members..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
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Title: Myanmar's Shan state runs on meth - and exports are thriving
Description: "Myanmar's Shan State is the epicentre of the global methamphetamine supply and the export of the illegal drug is about to get even easier, warns a new report from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). Shan State, a centre of conflict and illicit drug production since 1950, is controlled partly by Myanmar’s army, the Tatmadaw, and partly by multiple armed militias, some with the patronage of the Tatmadaw. "Good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and safe haven provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves have also made it a major global source of high purity crystal meth," says the 36-page report titled Fire And Ice: Conflict And Drugs In Myanmar's Shan State. "Production takes place in safe havens held by militias and other paramilitary units allied with the Myanmar military, as well as in enclaves controlled by non-state armed groups," the report says. The report is only the latest in a string of studies and warnings in recent years, over the proliferation of meth from Shan State, whose drug industry has seen only growth. There have been record seizures of meth in the last two years beyond the immediate region - 1.2 tonnes in Western Australia; 0.9 tonnes in Melbourne; 1.6 tonnes in Indonesia; 1.2 tonnes in Malaysia..."
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-01
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Title: Myanmar’s drug haven sees a surge in production
Description: "As the International Crisis Group (ICG) report “Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State” makes clear, drugs are big business for the players in this northeastern state. But while decades ago, the focus of drug interdiction efforts was on opium and heroin, today it is a drug that is in strong demand in Myanmar, the region, and the world. Methamphetamines and their variations – including powerful and highly addictive Ice – make up a lucrative industry in the state. Gram-for-gram, crystal meth is worth more than heroin, and the total value of the Mekong drug trade is estimated at over $40 billion per year and rising, according to the report. In January 2018, the Myanmar army and police raided an abandoned house in Kutkai township in northern Shan State, seizing 30 million yaba pills, 1,750kg of crystal meth, more than 500kg of heroin and 200kg of caffeine powder. According to the authorities, it was the country’s largest-ever drug bust, with a domestic value of some $54 million. The following month, a joint army and police team raided two major crystal meth labs in the same area, seizing some seven million dollars’ worth of advanced laboratory equipment, twelve state-of-the art generators, huge quantities of precursor chemicals, and unused branded packaging sufficient for ten tonnes of product – suggesting that the labs were gearing up for a production run of that volume. While the sizes of these seizures may have been record-setting, they were not surprising. In the last few years, authorities have regularly captured huge quantities of crystal meth in Myanmar and beyond, with the bulk thought to originate from Shan State. These included 1.2 tonnes seized in Western Australia in December 2017 and 0.9 tonnes in April that year in Melbourne; almost 5 tonnes in Thailand over the course of 2017 and 15 tonnes from January-July 2018; 1.6 tonnes in Indonesia in February 2018; and 1.2 tonnes in Malaysia in May 2018. What is clear is 2018 figures will exceed those for 2017. The Kutkai raids were revealing in a number of ways. First, the location was not a remote, rebel-controlled part of Shan State beyond the authorities’ reach. Rather, it was relatively close to Lashio, not far from the main road to the Chinese border at Muse – Myanmar’s biggest overland trade route – in an area controlled by a militia allied with the Tatmadaw. The Tatmadaw thus had access to the area, even if law enforcement personnel did not. Crisis Group researchers could drive to the area and talk to local people there, passing through checkpoints manned by the militia and visiting the village where the abandoned house was located. Second, authorities described both the house and the laboratories as “abandoned”. This suggests that those responsible were tipped off and fled in advance of the raids – which were triggered by Myanmar authorities being given precise coordinates of the locations and a description of the activities taking place there, so that officials apparently felt that they had no alternative but to act. There were apparently no consequences for the militia that controls the area, which has maintained a ceasefire with the military for nearly 28 years and has a large compound in Lashio town centre that Crisis Group researchers visited. Seizures of crystal meth, as well as yaba, have increased significantly in recent years. Each massive haul tends to be presented as an interdiction victory. However, these record seizures represent the tip of an iceberg, and are therefore evidence of the scale of the problem rather than of any genuine success in addressing it. Despite massive seizures, prices of crystal meth have remained stable, a clear indication that they are a small proportion of total volumes..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar) via BNI Multimedia Group (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-01
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Title: Shan State and opium issues
Description: "Table of Contents: opium history; ASEAN opium situation; Shan State and opium; United State and opium; communist and opium; Khun Sar and opium ...."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
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Title: Booming Meth Trade Challenges Southeast Asia’s Approach to Drug Policy
Description: "Patrick Winn is a reporter who has been based in the region for the past 11 years and the author of a recently published book, “Hello Shadowlands,” that delves into Southeast Asia’s transnational crime networks, including the meth trade. When I spoke to him in Bangkok recently, he offered a sobering assessment. “The increase in consumption of methamphetamine across Southeast Asia, especially mainland Southeast Asia, is truly astonishing,” he said. “This region is by far and away the meth heartland of the world.” Measuring any illicit activity accurately presents real difficulties. In addition to looking at seizures, availability and the street prices of a drug, another way of trying to work out the scale of the market is arrests. Winn points out that in Thailand, “well over 90 percent of the time cops are arresting someone for drugs, it’s because they have methamphetamine, either pills or crystal meth.” His assessment is backed up by a 2013 report released by the UNODC. So why has Southeast Asia become such a center for both the production and consumption of methamphetamine? In a basic sense, the answer is simple. To produce methamphetamine requires little more than precursor chemicals, a basic laboratory setup and a competent chemist with the requisite knowledge and a place to work where they are not going to be disturbed. As long as these elements remain constant, there is not much limit to how much can be produced. All that’s left to monetize the drug is transporting it to mass markets..."
Source/publisher: "World Politics Review (WPR)"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
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Title: Drug trafficking and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
Sub-title: Statelessness, restricted refugee camps and lack of accessibility to basic services have acted as strong push factors for Rohingyas to take up ‘Yaba’ drug trafficking in Bangladesh.
Description: "In 2018, a major attack on drug trade, especially of ‘Yaba’, popularly known as the madness drug, took place in Bangladesh where a record 53 million methamphetamine pills were seized. Nearly 300 suspected drug dealers were killed out of which 40 were from Teknaf area near to Rohingya camps. Some 25,000 were arrested, out of which few were Rohingyas. As Reuters reports, Bangladesh has become a big market for traffickers who source the drug from factories in lawless northeastern Myanmar. Why and how these stateless people are getting involved in this crime needs to be looked at. Bangladesh currently harbours more than 900,000 Rohingyas in their overpopulated camps. Already cramped and burdened, the living conditions in these camps are appalling. Though the Rohingyas are finally getting a chance to live in a settlement, some restrictions on procuring legitimate work is paving way for new illegal ones. The men, women and children, who travelled from their war torn villages, arrived at this side of the border either without their spouses or parents or children who they lost in the brutal military crackdown. While some could carry money or clothes, most couldn’t since their villages were lit on fire. Under such harsh physical and mental conditions, they are settled in the overpopulated camps where there are restrictions to work outside the camp areas. The relief they receive from the humanitarian organisations are in kind. They are only allowed to work in occupations created by the UNHCR organisations within the camps but the money they earn in exchange is meagre in order to support themselves and their families. The food supply remain limited and thus, having extra money helps to procure better ration and other basic necessities..."
Source/publisher: "Observer Research Foundation (ORF)" (India)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
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Title: Myanmar conflict: Kachin residents turn to drugs amid unrest
Sub-title: Instability, conflict since peace talks stalled in Kachin state have impoverished many, and some have turned to drugs.
Description: "In the mountainous region of Myanmar's northern-most Kachin state eight years of displacement and conflict has left many civilians distressed and poverty-stricken. A fragile ceasefire underlies the ongoing instability there while some have turned to drugs because of stress and depression..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
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Title: Myanmar state 'centre of global meth trade'
Sub-title: Report warns export of drugs from Shan state will be easier with economic corridor project
Description: "Myanmar's Shan state is the epicentre of the global methamphetamine supply and the export of the illegal drug is about to get even easier, warns a new report from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). In Shan state, a centre of conflict and illicit drug production since 1950, the trade in heroin and methamphetamine tablets is controlled partly by Myanmar's army, the Tatmadaw, and partly by multiple armed militias, some with the patronage of the Tatmadaw. "Good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and safe haven provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves have also made it a major global source of high purity crystal meth," says the report titled Fire And Ice: Conflict And Drugs In Myanmar's Shan State. The report is only the latest in a string of studies and warnings in recent years, over the proliferation of meth from Shan state, whose drug industry has seen only growth. There have been record seizures of meth in the last two years beyond the immediate region - 1.2 tonnes in Western Australia, 0.9 tonnes in Melbourne, 1.6 tonnes in Indonesia, 1.2 tonnes in Malaysia. Experts estimate seizure rates at below 10 per cent of total trade, suggesting a total annual production significantly in excess of 250 tonnes, the ICG says. In the Mekong sub-region, the trade's total value is estimated at over US$40 billion (S$54 billion) a year..."
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
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Title: Shan State’s vast drug trade dominates its economy, says ICG
Summary: "Illicit drug production in Shan State has become so large and profitable that it dwarfs the area’s formal economy and is hindering efforts to end ethnic conflicts, warns International Crisis Group...
Description: "Illicit drug production in Shan State has become so large and profitable that it dwarfs the area’s formal economy and is hindering efforts to end ethnic conflicts, warns International Crisis Group. In a report that focuses heavily on Shan State’s emergence as a global production centre of crystal methamphetamine, or “ice”, ICG says the drugs trade is both partly a symptom of the state’s conflicts and an obstacle to sustainably ending them. It says “good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and safe haven provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves” had enabled the state to become a major global source of high purity crystal meth. The 36-page report, Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State, was released by the Brussels-based think tank on January 8. It says the drug trade in Shan State is at the centre of its political economy, which “greatly complicates efforts to resolve the area’s ethnic conflicts and undermines the prospects for better governance and inclusive economic growth in the state”. The drug trade in Shan State generates revenues for armed groups of all stripes, including militias aligned with the Tatmadaw. “Myanmar’s military, which has ultimate authority over militias and paramilitaries and profits from their activities, can only justify the existence of such groups in the context of the broader ethnic conflict of the state – so the military also has less incentive to end that conflict,” the report says. It says drug production in Shan State has had three main phases: opium and heroin from the 1950s to 1990s (when Myanmar was the largest opium producer before it was replaced by Afghanistan), followed by methamphetamines, also known as yaba, and then highly-addictive crystal meth since the early 2010s..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-24
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Title: India seizes 1 tonne of ketamine on boat, arrests 6 Myanmar crew
Description: " India's coast guard has arrested six Myanmar men and seized US$42 million worth of ketamine after spotting a suspicious vessel in the Indian Ocean near the Nicobar Islands. The 1,160kg drug haul came after coast guard aircraft spotted the boat, which had its lights off, on Wednesday (Sep 18) in India's Exclusive Economic Zone, the defence ministry said in a statement. The boat's crew did not respond to radio calls and the coast guard eventually boarded it, with officials finding "57 gunny bundles of suspicious substance" on Friday. "Preliminary analysis ... revealed that the suspicious substance was ketamine and there were 1,160 packets of 1kg each onboard the vessel," the ministry added. The six Myanmar men and cargo were taken to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where they were questioned by investigators. They claimed they left Myanmar on Sep 14 and were due to rendezvous with another boat "operating near the Thailand-Malaysia maritime border line" on Saturday, the statement said..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore) via "AFP" (France)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-23
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Title: Myanmar cracking down on opium, but conflicts push drug trade
Sub-title: UN report shows less land being used to grow opium poppies, but conflicts hampering eradication programme.
Description: "The amount of land being used to grow opium poppies continues to decline in Myanmar, but ongoing conflicts are hampering efforts to stamp out the trade at a time when the illicit drug economy is becoming increasingly diverse, according to a new United Nations report. Some 37,300 hectares of land in the country was under poppy cultivation last year, down from 41,000 in 2017, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its Myanmar Opium Survey 2018 on Friday. Nearly 90 percent of all the opium was grown in the northeastern Shan state, where government forces continue to battle ethnic rebels. "The biggest drops in cultivation have been seen in areas that have had relatively good security," the UNODC said..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-23
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Title: Myanmar's China frontier 'wildlife supermarket'
Description: "MONGLA, Myanmar: Bentleys and BMW convertibles roll up to the "Venetian Casino" in Mongla on the Myanmar-China border, a melting pot of sex, drugs and gambling on a frontier that has also become a "supermarket" for illegally traded wildlife. This area of Myanmar is largely self-governed -- lying within the country's borders but playing by its own rules, nestled in the eastern range of mountains and cut off from the rest of the country. Instead, the region looks to China. The yuan is the currency of choice, most people speak Mandarin and phones connect to Chinese, not Myanmar, networks. It is also the insatiable Chinese demand for illegal wildlife products that is driving the booming trade in Panghsang, a reclusive city to the north of Mongla in territory controlled by the ethnic Wa. Tiger and leopard pelts are piled up in full view at streetside shops also displaying ivory, pangolin scales and stacked cages of rare birds. Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) conservation director Nick Cox says the open sale of the illegal products is a problem "not just for Myanmar but for the region", calling it a "wildlife supermarket". As night descends on the quiet streets of Panghsang, pockets of pink light illuminate the gloom -- emitted from the countless Chinese-branded massage parlours dotting the roads..."
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand) via AFP (France)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
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Title: Myanmar’s illegal drug crisis a ‘serious issue’, says expert
Description: "The first point to make for meth, which is the big growing problem for Myanmar, Myanmar does not produce any of the precursor chemicals, the chemicals that are needed to manufacture this. Most of these are coming from China; a few from other neighbouring countries of Myanmar. So there is also a responsibility of Myanmar’s neighbours to better control the flow of those precursor chemicals across the border into Myanmar. It is not just a Myanmar border control problem, it is also a China border control problem. And China, for example, has not been very effective at stopping the flow of those chemicals. It does not make regular seizures of illicit chemicals coming across the border, in fact, there has never been a major seizure of precursor chemicals by the Chinese border authorities as those chemicals cross the border. They do seize chemicals within China and Myanmar seizes chemicals within Myanmar but at the point of crossing there has never been a major seizure. That’s a big gap in law enforcement of this issue. So that is the first step, the precursor chemicals. But then the environment is Shan State is one where it is very difficult for the state to control. These criminal organizations that are involved in the production of these drugs choose locations for production which are difficult to reach, which are protected in some way by militia, by non-state army group, or by a general climate of impunity by paying people off so that they are not disturbed. So that is a problem of the armed conflict in Myanmar, it is also a problem of corruption. We know that these are very difficult issues for countries to address, and that is especially true given the scale of the problem. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. It is probably far larger in value than the entire legal economy of Shan State. So this is not a small problem it is a very large problem..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
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Title: Failing drug wars in northern Myanmar
Description: "Long-distance truck drivers, people working on fishing boats or those scavenging jade and gold mines are among those vulnerable to drug dependence in northern Myanmar. In the north of the country, where the reach of the central government is comparatively limited, workers may be partly paid in opium in recognition of the fact that their working lives are so benighted and subject to risk. As the demand for drugs is sustained, it is not surprising that the supply of drugs also remains strong. In the hilly areas of Kachin and Shan states, opium is grown as a second crop after rice by subsistence farmers. Those in the drug trade will then come to collect the crops from the farm gate at an agreed rate. This overcomes a significant problem of market access for farmers who lack access to roads as well as irrigation — for them, the prospect of obtaining substitute crops remains out of reach with significant government or NGO-led extension services unavailable in conflict areas. Despite attempts to hold talks that might yield peace, any real breakthrough seems to be far away. Opium is just one of many narcotics widely available throughout the country. A range of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines are also manufactured and distributed across Myanmar. These too are associated with conflict regions — heroin is linked with cash-rich mining operations while amphetamines are used by the truck drivers and fishing workers. These manufactured items tend to be the preserve of organised gangs which the security forces can tackle by various means. Opium, though, remains the drug woven into the fabric of society. There is no doubt that the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military force which generally acts for the government in the north of the country, would eliminate the drugs trade as it currently stands, not least because some of the proceeds continue to finance armed attempts at securing autonomy by various ethnic groups. In some cases, that means taking control of the trade — for years, the military has financed its own developmental schemes through drug money among other sources...."
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-21
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Title: Myanmar cop held for crystal meth switch
Description: "A Myanmar policeman has been arrested after switching 64 kilograms (140 pounds) of seized crystal meth with salts loosely resembling the party drug known as "ice", officials said Tuesday. Officers stumbled across the suspect packages of confiscated ice around a week ago as they carried out an inventory of seized narcotics at a police station ahead of an annual burning to mark an international day against drugs on June 26. "Sixty-four packages out of 103 were fake," Deputy Police Colonel Myint Swe, chief of Kengtung district police force in Shan State told AFP, adding each package weighed one kilo (2.2 pounds). A kilo of ice is worth around 20 million kyats ($13,000) locally, giving the pilfered product a value of around $830,000 inside Myanmar. It fetches several times more the further it travels from source. Police Sergeant Myint Naing was arrested on Sunday, several hours drive away, and had been flown back to Kengtung for interrogation, police said..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" via AFP
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
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Title: Myanmar police seize massive haul of meth pills
Description: "Myanmar authorities seized more than 10 million meth pills worth $13.3 million over the weekend, police said Monday, another massive haul in a country widely believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine producer. High-grade crystal meth -- or 'ice' -- is smuggled out of Myanmar via sophisticated networks to lucrative developed markets as far away as Japan, South Korea and Australia. Lower-quality pills, cut with caffeine and known in the region as "yaba" or "crazy medicine", are pumped out to feed the voracious domestic market as well as large drug-addicted communities in nearby Thailand and Bangladesh. Two different busts took place in the west of the country at the weekend, state-run media said Monday, one in Magway region and one in Maungdaw in Rakhine state. "It's the biggest drugs seizure this year in the country and the biggest ever in Maungdaw region in Rakhine State," police colonel Win Ko Ko told AFP. The pills were likely destined for Bangladesh, where they have become an easy source of income for the Rohingya Muslim refugees who have poured across the border since a 2017 military crackdown. Most of the drug production, however, takes place on the other side of Myanmar, in conflict-ridden eastern Shan state..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" via AFP
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
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Title: Myanmar struggles to tackle illegal drug trade that has morphed from traditional to modern drugs
Description: "Myanmar is caught in a conundrum as the government attempts to clean up the country’s illegal drugs trade. The country stands alongside Afghanistan as one of the top illegal drug producers in the world. And the illegal drug cartels have kept up with the times as they shifted the emphasis away from opium and heroin to the modern-day methamphetamines including the strong drug Ice. The fact that the Myanmar authorities are struggling to tackle this illegal trade comes down to the limited control Nay Pyi Taw has over the ethnic areas where the drugs are produced – primarily Shan and Kachin states – and the challenge of corruption and the state actors involved, as well as “men of influence” who benefit from the trade. But if real change is to come then Myanmar’s neighbours, China and Thailand, armed ethnic groups, and the international community need to join hands with Nay Pyi Taw to clamp down on the drug epidemic..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
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Title: Southeast Asia’s meth gangs making $60 billion a year: UN
Description: "Southeast Asia's drug gangs are making over $60 billion a year pumping out record amounts of methamphetamine, then laundering the profits through the region's mushrooming number of casinos, a UN study showed Thursday. Crime groups are also piggybacking on improved infrastructure to hustle Made-In-Myanmar meth to neighbouring drug markets, and as far as Australia and Japan, the report said. The study, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), warned this was sending street prices tumbling and spurring an addiction crisis. "(A) safe, conservative estimate of over $60 billion a year," is being hoovered up by the meth lords of Southeast Asia alone, Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC's regional representative, told reporters in Bangkok at the report's launch. Seizures of methamphetamine - both the caffeine-cut 'yaba' tablets and the much more addictive and potent crystal meth or 'ice' version - had tripled over the last five years, according to the report. Last year 120 tonnes (120,000 kilogrammes) of meth was seized in East and Southeast Asia, up from around 40 tonnes in 2013, the report said. The figures were based on drug seizure figures and regional police intelligence. Much of the meth is originating from the labs of remote and lawless Northern Shan State in Myanmar, which has rebooted the 'Golden Triangle' drug trade from its staple of heroin..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" via AFP
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-16
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Title: Myanmar struggles to deal with money laundering and related crime
Description: "The Myanmar government is seeking to tackle the problems of money laundering and drug trafficking using a number of measures from increased policing and the confiscating and burning of drugs to tackling the problem of corrupt officials. Only this month, Myanmar President Win Myint called on the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) headed by its Chairman Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, the Union Minister for Home Affairs, to step up momentum in its fight against drugs, according to local media reports. Speaking at a meeting with the CCDAC at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw, the President said controlling the spread of illegal drug use was a national duty that the government is undertaking in line with UN conventions. President Win Myint called on the government’s anti-drug body to speed up its work, both in terms of cracking down on the trade and also raising drug awareness. He instructed them to carefully carry out awareness-raising campaigns on the dangers of narcotic drugs and provide rehabilitation and treatment to people abusing drugs. The President called it a national duty and said officials must adhere to existing laws, bylaws, regulations and police ethics when handling drug issues, the collection of evidence and ensure swift management in line with court orders. He suggested a holistic approach where those caught up in drug abuse could be provided with therapy and in the right circumstances alternative farming and livestock rearing livelihood options..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-14
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Title: Myanmar struggles to deal with money laundering and related crime
Description: "The Myanmar government is seeking to tackle the problems of money laundering and drug trafficking using a number of measures from increased policing and the confiscating and burning of drugs to tackling the problem of corrupt officials. Only this month, Myanmar President Win Myint called on the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) headed by its Chairman Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, the Union Minister for Home Affairs, to step up momentum in its fight against drugs, according to local media reports. Speaking at a meeting with the CCDAC at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw, the President said controlling the spread of illegal drug use was a national duty that the government is undertaking in line with UN conventions. President Win Myint called on the government’s anti-drug body to speed up its work, both in terms of cracking down on the trade and also raising drug awareness. He instructed them to carefully carry out awareness-raising campaigns on the dangers of narcotic drugs and provide rehabilitation and treatment to people abusing drugs. The President called it a national duty and said officials must adhere to existing laws, bylaws, regulations and police ethics when handling drug issues, the collection of evidence and ensure swift management in line with court orders. He suggested a holistic approach where those caught up in drug abuse could be provided with therapy and in the right circumstances alternative farming and livestock rearing livelihood options..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-14
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Title: Myanmar Military Detains Militia Leader in Shan State
Summary: "A people’s militia leader in Nansang Township, in southern Shan State, was detained last week by the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) on suspicion of involvement in illicit drug production and trade,...
Description: "A people’s militia leader in Nansang Township, in southern Shan State, was detained last week by the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) on suspicion of involvement in illicit drug production and trade, according to local sources. Sai Tah was detained last week and has been under interrogation since. “We have not charged him yet, but we detained him and are interrogating him in relation to illegal drug trading,” Tatmadaw spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun said the military attempted unsuccessfully to detain two additional people’s militia members, who are now in hiding. According to the Shan Herald Agency for News, Sai Nyut, a junior leader and militia captain, is one of the two suspects the Tatmadaw is looking for; he fled with some 60 armed troops, the news agency reported. According to the Shan Herald Agency for News, the military has offered to release Sai Tah if Sai Nyut turns himself in..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-13
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Title: Drug crisis ravages Myanmar's Shan State
Description: "Myanmar is the second-biggest producer of opium in the world after Afghanistan and is now believed to be the largest source of methamphetamine. In Shan state, heroin and meth use here are rampant and the region lies at the epicentre of Myanmar's drug crisis..."
Source/publisher: "AFP news agency"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-08
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Title: Myanmar’s Wa hold the key to war and peace
Sub-title: Ethnic armed group has leveraged ties to China to avoid conflict and build a prosperous nationalist state
Description: "The Wa, an autonomous ethnic minority living in the rugged hills of northeastern Myanmar, are open and clear that they have no intention to break away from the national union. The Wa Self-Administered Division, as their territory is officially known, is a self-governing buffer state between Myanmar and China with its own courts, schools, hospitals and even a modern TV news station. Besides the native Wa language, many speak Chinese while only a few are fluent in the country’s main Bamar language. The Chinese yuan, not the Myanmar kyat, is the currency of choice in shops and marketplaces. Mobile phones and the internet are linked to Chinese, not Myanmar, networks.The Wa state’s main city, Panghsang, also known as Pangkham, is a showcase of prosperity in the middle of a region stuck in conflict-ridden underdevelopment and poverty. And it is here that the fate of Myanmar’s hamstrung yet crucial peace process will most likely be decided. In the 1970s and 1980s, the area was controlled by the insurgent Communist Party of Burma (CPB). But, in 1989, the mostly Wa hill-tribe rank-and-file of its army mutinied and drove their orthodox Maoist Myanmar leaders into exile in China. Communism was purged and local Wa nationalism took its place..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-07
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Title: Myanmar police busts 2.67 mln stimulant tablets from drugs ring
Description: "Myanmar authorities busted over 2.67 million stimulant tablets worth over 8 billion kyats (5.35 million U.S. dollars) from a drugs ring in two region and states, said a release from Myanmar Police Force on Thursday. Acting on tip-off, a total of 175,980 stimulant tablets were seized in three townships of Yangon region on Aug. 25. According to the testimony of the suspects, the police force conducted more drug raids for seizures of 1,000,000 stimulant tablets from a passenger bus in Aung Mingalar Highway station on Aug. 26, and 750,000 stimulant tablets from a passenger bus in Ann township as well as 749,975 tablets from another bus in Minbya township of Rakhine state one day after..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua"
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-29
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Title: Dooplaya Situation Update: School corporal punishment, theft of civilian property by Tatmadaw soldiers, land confiscation and drug-related human rights abuses in Win Yay, Kawkareik and Kyainseikgyi townships between December 2018 and February 2019
Sub-title: This Situation Update describes events that occurred in Win Yay, Kawkareik and Kyainseikgyi townships, Dooplaya District, between December 2018 and February 2019. These include human rights abuses such as school corporal punishment by a KECD teacher; thef
Description: "Access to the Karen Education and Culture Department’s (KECD)[3] education system has improved in Win Yay Township over the last few years, and most of the schools have started teaching Karen language already. However, some teachers don’t respect school hours or give heavy punishment to the students. In 2018, KECD primary school teacher Ma Tin Cho reportedly beat two students in H--- village, Kyainseikgyi Township, because they were not wearing Karen shirts. As a result, their parents stopped sending their children to this school, as one of them reported to KHRG: “Wewill send our children back toschool only when we can affordto buy them Karen shirts.” Therefore, they had to send their children to the closest Myanmar government school or to S--- village’s school, Chaung Hson village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township...On February 23rd and March 15th 2019, Tatmadaw soldiers came to the P--- resettlement site, Lay Wah Plo (Kyain Kyaung) village tract, Kyainseikgyi Township to check how many households and inhabitants there were in the village following the recent return of refugees from Thai camps. They also questioned locals about which organisations were operating there. That situation raised security concerns among returnees, as the Tatmadaw has a long history of perpetrating human rights violations against civilians in Southeast Myanmar.[5] The returnees also face livelihood difficulties. Since they were not given agricultural lands to work on, most are engaged in intermittent, casual work. They also do not feel safe because of there are have been some thefts in P---, and drug dealers also operate in the area..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-02
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Title: 2011 Patterns and Trends of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants and Other Drugs, Asia and the Pacific
Description: "The East and South-East Asia region, which is home to about one-third of the global population, has one of the most established amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) markets in the world, primarily for methamphetamine. Since the late 1990s, the illicit manufacture, trafficking and use of ATS have expanded significantly in the region. These trends continued in 2010. The present report highlights the most current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs of use in East and South-East Asia and provides overviews for the neighbouring regions of South Asia and the Pacific. This is the latest in a series of reports prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme. The objective of the Global SMART Programme is to enhance the capacity of Member States and relevant authorities to generate, manage, analyse, report and use synthetic drug information, in order to design effective, scientifically-sound and evidencebased policies and programmes. The findings of the report are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, via the Drug Use Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP) established through the Global SMART Programme. Information from DAINAP is supplemented with data from other Government sources such as national reports, the Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through primary and secondary research. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea also provided data to the Global SMART Programme for this report. All 15 countries that contributed to this report reported significant levels of ATS use. In several of those countries, ATS drugs, particularly methamphetamine (in pill or crystalline form), have emerged as the primary drug threat in recent years, in some cases displacing traditionally used plant-based drugs such as heroin, opium or cannabis. It is estimated that between 3.5 and 20.9 million persons in East and South-East Asia have used amphetamines in the past year..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
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Title: Regional Programme for East Asia and the Pacific 2009 - 2012
Sub-title: Report on Operations in 2011 and Future Prospects
Description: Four new Border Liaison Offices (BLOs) were established on the border between Cambodia and Viet Nam, with an expanded mandate to deal with all forms of crossborder trafficking and smuggling (not just drugs). Twelve other existing BLOs have been identified for mandate expansion, in the same two countries, beyond their current focus on drug control. Multi-agency national committees were established in Cambodia and Viet Nam to oversee the work of the new-style BLOs, demonstrating national commitment to improving cooperation between agencies dealing with different types of cross-border crime (including drugs, smuggling of people, natural resources and hazardous goods). Collection and sharing of regional data concerning production, smuggling, and use of Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS) and other drugs through the SMART programme continues to improve year after year. There is clear evidence to show that the data is being used in the region to help inform policy making. New Global e-Learning products (also known as Computer Based Training) were developed. New training modules for Smuggling of Migrants, Trafficking in Persons, Wildlife Crime and Human Rights are now in production. Access to information on migrant smuggling in the region (in support of the Bali Process) continues to improve with UNODC support. Research papers have been produced and steady progress is being made towards establishing a regional voluntary reporting system on migrant smuggling. In Indonesia, capacities of stakeholder institutions, NGOs and communities have been strengthened in Papua Province to help combat illegal logging and the illicit trade in forest products. Background research on child-sex tourism in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam has been largely completed, in preparation for the implementation of ‘Project Childhood’ in collaboration with INTERPOL. This has included legislative review/gap analysis, institutional profiling and a review of current training programmes for law enforcement officials on combatting child-sex tourism. The need for improved national mechanisms and enhanced cross-border cooperation to support victims of human trafficking has been effectively advocated, based on preliminary research and dialogue with senior government officials in Cambodia and Thailand.
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
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Title: South-East Asia: Opium Survey 2011
Description: "The Lao PDR Opium Survey 2011 was undertaken and produced by the Government of Lao PDR and UNODC. From 2005 to 2011, the survey methodology has consisted of an aerial survey by helicopter covering sample sites in opium poppy producing provinces in northern Lao PDR. Like in 2010, the survey focused on four Provinces (Phongsaly, Houaphan Luang Namtha and Xieng Khouang). Observations show that the poppy cultivation was concentrated in two of these provinces, namely Phongsaly and Houaphan. Cultivation in Luang Namtha and Xieng Khouang had become marginal in the past years, however, in 2011 some large concentrations were spotted in Luang Namtha. Although no survey took place in Oudomxay province, the survey team received information that some poppy was growing again in the North of this province. Opium poppy cultivation In 2011, opium poppy cultivation was found in all of the four surveyed provinces. The total area under opium poppy cultivation in the Lao PDR expanded to 4,100 hectares in 2011 (an increase of 38% from 2010) with a confidence interval from 2,500 ha to 6,000 ha. In spite of this increase, the overall level of opium poppy cultivation in the country remains low compared to a decade ago. Following the trend noticed over the last two years, more fields are gathered in strings covering the mountainsides around the villages, which might indicate that cultivation is becoming more common..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
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Title: World Drug Report 2012
Description: "Chapter I of this year’s World Drug Report provides an overview of recent trends and the drug situation in terms of production, trafficking and consumption and the consequences of illicit drug use in terms of treatment, drugrelated diseases and drug-related deaths. Chapter II presents a long-term perspective on the characteristics and evolution of the drug problem and the main factors that shaped it. It starts with a discussion of the main characteristics of the contemporary drug problem, followed by an overview of the shifts observed over the last few de cades, before concluding with an analysis of the driving factors that shaped the evolution of the drug problem, including a brief outlook for its likely future direction. CHAPTER I. RECENT STATISTICS AND TREND ANALYSIS OF ILLICIT DRUG MARKETS Latest available data indicate that there has been no significant change in the global status quo regarding the use, production and health consequences of illicit drugs, other than the return to high levels of opium production in Afghanistan after a disease of the opium poppy and subsequent crop failure in 2010. But while the troubled waters of the world’s illicit drug markets may appear to be stagnant, shifts and changes in their flows and currents can be observed below the surface. These are significant and also worrying, not because of how they currently impact on the data but because they are proof of the resilience and adaptability of illicit drug suppliers and users and because of the potential future repercussions of those shifts and changes in the world’s major drug markets. The global picture The extent of global illicit drug use remained stable in the five years up to and including 2010, at between 3.4 and 6.6 per cent of the adult population (persons aged 15-64). However, some 10-13 per cent of drug users continue to be problem users with drug dependence and/or drug-use disorders, the prevalence of HIV (estimated at approximately 20 per cent), hepatitis C (46.7 per cent) and hepatitis B (14.6 per cent) among injecting drug users continues to add to the global burden of disease, and, last but not least, approximately 1 in every 100 deaths among adults is attributed to illicit drug use. Opioids continue to be the dominant drug type accounting for treatment demand in Asia and Europe and also contribute considerably to treatment demand in Africa, North America and Oceania. Treatment for cocaine use is mainly associated with the Americas, while cannabis is the main drug causing treatment demand in Africa. Demand for treatment relating to the use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) is most common in Asia..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-08
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Title: 2012 Patterns and Trends of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants and Other Drugs: Asia and the Pacific
Description: "Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are the second most widely used class of drugs worldwide, after cannabis. The East and South-East Asia region, which is home to about one-third of the global population, has some of the largest and most established ATS markets in the world. Methamphetamine in pill, powder and crystalline forms are the most widely used forms of ATS in the region. Demand for ecstasy remains high, although its use has declined. Since the late 1990s, the illicit manufacture, trafficking and use of ATS have expanded significantly in the region. These trends continued in 2011. The present report highlights the most current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs of use in East and South-East Asia and provides overviews for the neighbouring regions of South Asia and the Pacific. This is the latest in a series of reports prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme. The objective of the Global SMART Programme is to enhance the capacity of Member States and relevant authorities to generate, manage, analyse, report and use synthetic drug information, in order to design effective, scientifically-sound and evidencebased policies and programmes. The findings of the report are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, via the Drug Abuse Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP) established through the Global SMART Programme. Information from DAINAP is supplemented with data from other Government sources such as national reports, the Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through primary and secondary research. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea also provided data to the Global SMART Programme for this report..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.39 MB
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Title: Migrant Smuggling in Asia: Annotated Bibliography
Description: "This report integrates the reviewed literature on irregular migration and the working conditions of smuggled migrants with in-depth interviews with a group of Pakistanis working in London’s migrant economy. "e intent is to describe the speci!c forms of risk and “precarity” facing smuggled migrants in this particular context. "e report begins with a discussion of the methodology issues that ensued when dealing with a population reluctant to be identi- !ed. Despite the problems, 21 semi-structured interviews were carried out during the course of the study, although this number included several regular migrants as well as employers. "e inclusion of the latter two groups allowed for comparisons and different perspectives in the analysis. Findings from the study delineate both similarities and di#erences in the conditions endured by regular and irregular migrants. Both migrant groups experience long hours, poor working conditions and a certain amount of insecurity, but irregular migrants must adapt to ever-changing circumstances, given the instability of life in their enclave. Although both types of migrants experience similar di$culties, irregular migrants’ problems are exacerbated due to their status. For example, they need to pay o# smugglers who facilitated their journeys as well as escape notice of authorities empowered to deport them. "ese burdens are both psychological and material. In essence, they become “prisoners of monetized time”, which impedes the hope of upward mobility..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.26 MB
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Title: Patterns and Trends of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants and Other Drugs: Challenges for Asia and the Pacific
Description: "The market for amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in the Asia and the Pacific region continued to expand in 2012. Seizures of methamphetamine in pill and crystalline forms reached record highs while methamphetamine use increased in most countries in East and Southeast Asia, according to government expert perception. Illicit methamphetamine manufacture continued to spread throughout the region and new markets emerged for a variety of other synthetic substances. Ecstasy use, which had been in decline over the past several years, increased in a number of countries in 2012 while ecstasy seizures more than tripled compared with the previous year. Moreover, the range of new psychoactive substances (NPS) found in the region continued to increase. This report highlights the most current patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants and other drugs of use in East and Southeast Asia and provides overviews for the neighbouring regions of South Asia and the Pacific Island States and Territories. This is the latest in a series of reports prepared under the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme. The Programme seeks to enhance the capacity of Member States and authorities in priority regions to generate, manage, analyse and report synthetic drug information, and to apply this scientific evidence-based knowledge to design effective responses. A primary objective of this report is to help in improving the ability of states to respond to the growing human security and public health threats posed by the illicit manufacture, trafficking and use of synthetic drugs in the Asia and the Pacific region. The findings of this report are based on primary information submitted by the drug control agencies and designated institutions in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, via the Drug Abuse Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP) established through the Global SMART Programme. Information from DAINAP is supplemented with data from other government sources such as national reports, the UNODC Annual Reports Questionnaire, and through primary and secondary research. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea also provided data to the Global SMART Programme for this report..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.6 MB
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Title: Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2013
Description: "While the area under poppy cultivation in Myanmar increased by 13% in 2013, the number of households growing poppy remained roughly the same, as farmers on average dedicated a larger portion of their land to poppy cultivation than in 2012. The average area of poppy per opium growing household more than doubled from 0.17 hectares in 2002/2003 to 0.43 hectares in 2013. This implies a larger dependency of those households on opium. Furthermore, the Myanmar survey found that many households not only earn income from the cultivation of opium poppy on their own land, but also by labouring in the poppy fields of other farmers. Alternative development projects thus need to address both of these groups, as a reduction in poppy cultivation for many households means the loss of an opportunity to generate income from poppy-related wage labour. There is a strong link between poverty and poppy cultivation. In poppy-growing villages in Myanmar, significantly higher proportions of households are in debt and are exposed to food insecurity than in non-poppy-growing villages. Furthermore, households in poppy-growing villages on average suffer longer from food insecurity than households in non-growing villages. Thus, in poppy-growing villages, opium cultivation seems to be a means to earn cash income in order to purchase food in months when households’ food resources have been depleted. In other words, poppy farmers try to compensate for a lack of alternatives in their opportunities for earning income in order to subsist. Income patterns in poppy-growing and non-poppy growing villages in Myanmar are complex and differ in much more than just poppy cultivation. Despite indicators of greater vulnerability (as seen in higher levels of debt, food insecurity and drug use), households in poppy-growing villages in all regions, with the exception of East Shan, had a higher average income than those in nonpoppy-growing villages. On the other hand, households in non-poppy-growing villages had better access to salaried jobs and petty trade. In Lao PDR, no socio-economic survey of poppy-growing villages was conducted in recent years. The data from the helicopter flights and satellite image analysis indicated that poppy cultivation continued to be a phenomenon linked to villages in peripheral, difficult to access locations, far from population and market centres. Risks and opportunities associated with different income patterns in poppy-growing and nonpoppy growing villages need to be investigated in more detail in Myanmar but also in Lao PDR to understand how livelihood risks can be reduced and the resilience of households can be improved in the context of efforts to contain and reduce households’ dependence on poppy cultivation..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 6.94 MB
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Title: The Challenge of Synthetic Drugs in East and South-East Asia and Oceania
Sub-title: Trends and Patterns of Amphetamine-type Stimulants and New Psychoactive Substances
Description: "This report analyses recent trends and developments of the synthetic drugs market in East and South-East Asia and Oceania, comprising both amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and new psychoactive substances (NPS). NPS are substances of abuse that are not controlled by the International Drug Conventions but which may pose a public health threat. In this context, the term ‘new’ does not necessarily refer to new inventions but to substances that have recently become available.1 East and South-East Asia and Oceania has the largest ATS market in the world and in recent years the scope and availability of NPS has rapidly expanded. Moreover, this synthetic drugs market is becoming more complex and interconnected with other regions. These developments warrant an in-depth study to understand the current threat and impact of ATS and NPS in East and South-East Asia and Oceania within a global context. The analysis of the synthetic drug problem in the region is essential to complement the understanding of the illicit market for synthetic drugs called for in the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem. The availability of quality data and information-sharing in the region has improved with the support of the Drug Abuse Information Network for Asia and the Pacific (DAINAP), which offers a regional control mechanism for drug monitoring.2 However, the quality of data and information on some aspects of the synthetic drugs market remains limited. Particularly, demand-related data on the extent and pattern of use, and treatment remains scarce. And yet, methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs that pose a serious health threat to users seem to become increasingly available and are a challenge for health care providers and drug control authorities. Challenges in reducing the supply and demand for synthetic drugs Methamphetamine continues to dominate the synthetic drugs market in East and South-East Asia and is mainly available in two forms: methamphetamine tablets and crystalline methamphetamine. Increasing methamphetamine seizures and expert perception of high levels of methamphetamine tablet and crystalline methamphetamine use indicate the presence of a large and possibly expanding market in East and South-East Asia.3 For some years, the “ecstasy”4 market has been concentrated in parts of Oceania. Recently, according to expert perception, there is an emerging “ecstasy” market in parts of East and South-East Asia with use reported in Indonesia and countries in the Mekong sub-region.5 Addressing the trafficking of synthetic drugs in East and South-East Asia involves a number of difficulties. Over the last several years, countries in East and South-East Asia and Oceania have experienced rapid economic expansion. For instance, the share of the regions’ global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on purchasingpower-parity (PPP), is estimated to have increased from about 10 per cent in 2000 to over 30 per cent in 2014 at a value of more than US$ 28 trillion.6 Except for a sharp drop in 2009, exports and imports to and from countries in East and South-East Asia and Oceania have also significantly increased over the years. Between 2002 and 2013, imports and exports more than tripled to more than US$ 6.5 trillion and 6.9 US$ trillion respectively..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 9.34 MB 2.78 MB
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Title: Protecting peace and prosperity in Southeast Asia: synchronizing economic and security agendas
Description: "This report outlines the need to strengthen links between Southeast Asia’s economic integration agenda and its security agenda. The region is committed to rapidly developing economic connections but attention is lagging towards the security impacts that accompany these developments. Regional integration expands licit economic opportunities, but illicit markets tend to develop at the same time. Where cross-border infrastructure and trade facilitation initiatives are expanding, organised crime groups have demonstrated the capacity to seize new opportunities to expand cross-border crime. ASEAN member states have committed to expand the regional economic market through far-reaching fast moving integration. Physical and non-physical barriers are being removed to ensure more practical and efficient border crossings for people, goods and money. This process is accompanied by a number of infrastructure initiatives that will enhance connectivity between trading partners and increase access to previously remote areas. For trade and infrastructure planners, the dominant concept of border management is shifting from ‘control’ to ‘facilitation’. However, the positive effects of economic growth need to be safeguarded by making trade, migration, and sensitive areas more secure. The expected growth of cross-border trade and migration calls for novel measures to monitor and secure the people and goods moving internationally. This requires robust and streamlined procedures; law enforcement and security agencies will need to work closely with trade and infrastructure planners and developers. Currently, the ASEAN institutional agenda for countering transnational crime is not moving at the same speed as the trade and migration side of the integration agenda.1 This report provides a brief overview of economic integration and infrastructure plans and initiatives intended to connect the ASEAN region internally and with other regions, particularly neighbouring India and China. It begins by analysing relevant trade agreements and progress in expanding transport networks around the region and connections to other regions. The analysis includes observations on where the risks for negative social and environmental impacts are high. Following that, there are four sections that provide a non-exhaustive overview of sub-regions with pronounced transnational crime challenges. Recent increases in the trafficking of drugs and precursor chemicals, humans, and counterfeit goods, as well as environmental crimes, warrant special attention in managing international flows in these geographic areas. Projections of future threats underline the importance of taking action now..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.94 MB
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Title: Transnational Organized Crime in the Pacific: A Threat Assessment
Description: "This report presents major threats posed by transnational organized crime in the Pacific region, mainly focusing on the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). Based on consultations with the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and information obtained from desk reviews conducted by UNODC, this report focuses on four major types of transnational organized crime affecting the Pacific region: • Drug and precursor trafficking; • Trafficking in persons & smuggling of migrants; • Environmental crimes (fishery crime and other wildlife trafficking & illegal logging and timber trafficking); and • Small arms trafficking. In addition to the major four types of transnational crime, the report also includes some information on the trafficking of counterfeit goods, including fraudulent medicines, and cybercrime to shed light on emerging threats in the region. The four major illicit flows discussed in the report are different sorts of illicit activities, yet they all pose immense challenges to the region. There are strong indications that the PICTs are increasingly targeted by transnational organized crime groups due to their susceptibility to illicit flows driven by several factors. These include (a) the geographical location of the PICTs situated between major sources and destinations of illicit commodities; (b) extensive and porous jurisdictional boundaries; and (c) differences in governance and heterogeneity in general law enforcement capacity across numerous PICTs and the region in general. These complexities also underscore the inherent difficulties in detecting, monitoring, preventing and responding to transnational organized crimes in the region. In this context, transnational criminal activities continue to increase throughout the Pacific and have detrimental impacts on communities, sustainable economic development and regional security. At a regional level and across all transnational organized crime types discussed in this report, a fundamental problem is the significant gaps in data and information related to transnational crime among the PICTs. This is a major hindrance in developing effective and evidence-based responses to transnational organized crime..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.1 MB
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Title: Working Paper: Reframing Alternative Development in the Greater Mekong Subregion (2015)
Description: "This working paper (the Paper) aims to contribute to greater consistency in the approaches to alternative development (AD) and related practices in Southeast Asia, and particularly, among the countries of the 1993 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Drug Control in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Although some reviews of alternative development in the GMS have been written, most have been countryspecific with a focus on Thailand. Accordingly, there have been very limited comparative studies of alternative development processes across all the countries in the GMS. Similarly, there is a shortage of studies and analysis that delineate what practices, methods and approaches have worked best in the region. At the MOU Senior Official Committee (SOC) and Ministerial meetings held in Ha Noi, Viet Nam from 19 to 21 May 2015, the MOU countries identified this as a critical gap. It was also highlighted that there were differing approaches, with subsequently varying practices, to alternative development currently being implemented in the GMS and this was hampering collective efforts. The MOU countries agreed that in order to better address persistent challenges related to illicit crop cultivation, there was a need to achieve greater consistency and regional synergy in alternative development approaches in the Subregion. This could be achieved through the sharing of best practices and experiences, and identification of what works..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.24 MB
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Title: 2016 Annual Summary Monitoring Report – Regional Programme for Southeast Asia
Description: "DRUG AND PRECURSOR TRAFFICKING | Threat assessments undertaken help improve understanding of the flow of drugs and precursors and designing effective solutions. Enhanced understanding of the regional context and strengthened capacities are required to address the challenge of synthetic drug production in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. HUMAN TRAFFICKING | MIGRANT SMUGGLING | Regional and inter-agency cooperation and information sharing are vital to address human trafficking and migrant smuggling across the region. Law enforcement agencies often lack sufficient knowledge to correctly identify human trafficking and migrant smuggling cases, and legal frameworks to prosecute cases are not always adequate. FOREST AND WILDLIFE CRIME | The designation of wildlife and timber trafficking as serious transnational crimes requiring regional action by the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime has moved wildlife and forest crime up on the regional agenda. UNODC will continue supporting Member States to address environmental crimes. BORDER MANAGEMENT AND CROSS BORDER COOPERATION | Aiming to bring together counterparts from different countries, jurisdictions, and agencies with a focus on sharing information. Communication through the border liaison office network is the key element in UNODC’s approach to strengthening border control in the region. ANTI CORRUPTION | The first round of the implementation review mechanism of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was conducted throughout the region. Effective anti-corruption efforts require a wholeof-government and society approach, including different sectors and branches of the government, civil society groups and the private sector. TERRORISM PREVENTION | A growing number of attacks in the region placed terrorism high on the agenda throughout 2016. UNODC will continue supporting Member States to strengthen national capacities to counter terrorism and address regional threats such as foreign terrorist fighters returning to the region. CRIMINAL JUSTICE | Criminal justice provides the foundation to counter organized crime and protect vulnerable groups through the rule of law. UNODC will continue to support Member States to address key criminal justice challenges, and to drive criminal justice reform in the region. DRUGS AND HEALTH, AND ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT | UNODC continues to offer support to Member States in Southeast Asia in transitioning from compulsory treatment centers for drug users, towards a voluntary community based treatment approach. At the same time, UNODC will continue to advance its principles on alternative development and assist with research on the opium economy..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-05
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.91 MB
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Title: The Challenge of Synthetic Drugs in East and South-East Asia
Summary: "There is no sign of respite in the expansion of the methamphetamine market in East and South-East Asia. Seizures of both forms of methamphetamine - tablets and crystalline - reached record highs in...
Sub-title: A Report from the Global SMART Programme June 2017
Description: "There is no sign of respite in the expansion of the methamphetamine market in East and South-East Asia. Seizures of both forms of methamphetamine - tablets and crystalline - reached record highs in 2015, and most countries in the region noted increasing use of methamphetamine. • Both the number and the scale of illicit methamphetamine manufacture facilities continue to increase to meet the rapidly rising demand for methamphetamine in the region. In 2015, approximately 630 illicit synthetic drug manufacturing facilities were dismantled in the region. Of these, the majority were methamphetamine manufacturing facilities. • The retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine in countries in East and South-East Asia are high, and might be a key driver for intensified intra-regional and inter-regional methamphetamine trafficking. • Substantial quantities of precursor chemicals, which can be used for manufacture of methamphetamine, have been seized in the region with recent trends indicating a diversification of precursors and methods used. • Tablets sold as “ecstasy” in the region contain various substances other than MDMA, including new psychoactive substances (NPS). • The production of opiates in the region has been relatively stable between 2013 and 2015 but remains at a comparatively high level. Heroin trafficking and use remains a key concern in the region. • A wide range of new psychoactive substances have been identified in East and South-East Asia. These include potent synthetic opioids, such as derivatives of fentanyl , which have been implicated in the ongoing opioid overdose crisis in North America..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-05
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.9 MB
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Title: Myanmar Opium Survey 2017
Description: "In 2017, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) of the Myanmar Police Force of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar collaborated for the 15th time with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to implement an opium survey. 2016 and 2017 surveys focused on different aspects of opium production: in 2016, the survey focused on the socio‐economic conditions of farmers in opium growing areas (https://www.unodc.org/ documents/crop‐monitoring/sea/2016_Myanmar_Shan_Opium_Poppy_web.pdf)1 , and in 2017 on estimating the extent of poppy cultivation and opium production. The area and production survey in 2017 has focused on major opium producing states, Shan and Kachin2 . In addition, a selective sampling rate has been applied for the collection of the satellite imagery, using an approach that guarantees comparability with 2015 results. The 2017 opium survey estimates that 41,000 ha of opium poppy has been cultivated in Shan and Kachin States. Compared to the 2015 estimate, this represents a 25% decrease. Reductions have taken place in East and South Shan (‐37% and ‐29% respectively), whereas in North Shan and Kachin States the cultivation remained practically stable (‐3% and ‐7%). Continued turmoil in North Shan and Kachin appear to be linked to the steady cultivation levels. The reported amount of eradication has also been very low in these two states (less than 130 ha), whereas the large majority (85%) of the total eradication (3,533 ha) has been reported from South Shan. In terms of opium production, part of the area reduction has been offset by an increase in yields per hectare in South Shan, which have risen by 43% to 14.2 kg/ha. Combined with the reduced cultivation areas, this resulted in a 14% decrease of potential dry opium production in Shan and Kachin states. In 2017, South Shan state remains the largest opium producer supplying almost half (43%) of the total estimated potential production of 550 metric tons. Cultivation, eradication and drug seizure figures showed similar trends in the past eight years, showing increases from 2010 to 2012‐2014 and decreasing slightly since then. These trends, in combination with declining opium prices and anecdotal evidence of reduced trafficking suggest that the demand for opium and heroin has decreased. These trends will be further researched in the upcoming remote sensing survey and a new village survey, which the Government of the Union of Myanmar and UNODC are currently preparing for the 2018 opium poppy season..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-05
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.33 MB
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