Naw Kham’s wry smile belied his macabre circumstances. “I haven’t been able to sleep for two days. I have been thinking too much. I miss my mum. I don’t want my children to be like me,” the 44-year-old Burmese druglord, chained to a chair, told a Chinese TV interviewer.

On Friday – two days after the interview – the Burmese freshwater pirate was executed for allegedly murdering a crew of Chinese sailors on the Mekong river in October, 2011. His last moments were aired on state television.

In the two-hour live broadcast, black-clad police officers hauled Naw Kham from a detention centre in southern China, bound him with ropes and chains, and bundled him on to a bus bound for the execution site. Three of his alleged henchmen followed in similar fashion. They were each killed – off camera – by lethal injection.

Though a rumored live broadcast of the actual executions failed to materialize, the TV coverage attracted heavy criticism. “It’s hard to see how that spectacle doesn’t violate [the] prohibition on parading condemned in the streets,” tweeted human rights researcher Joshua Rosenzweig, referring to a 1984 ban introduced to avoid unfavorable foreign media coverage. Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin commented that China had “just wiped away any perception that it was making progress on the death penalty issue.” Within China, reactions to the broadcast were deeply polarized. From Andrew Jacobs at The New York Times:

“Rather than showcasing rule of law, the program displayed state control over human life in a manner designed to attract gawkers,” Han Youyi, a criminal law professor, wrote via microblog. “State-administered violence is no loftier than criminal violence.”

[…] In one segment, Liu Yuejin, director general of the central government’s Narcotics Control Bureau, cast the executions as a pivotal moment for a newly confident China and for ethnic Chinese across the globe. “In the past, overseas Chinese dared not say they were of Chinese origin,” said Mr. Liu, who led the task force that spent six months hunting the culprits. “Now they can hold their heads high and be themselves.”

Supporters of the program were many, and enthusiastic. One blogger suggested that death by lethal injection was too lenient, adding “These beasts should be pulled apart by vehicles.”

Some critics said the broadcast, and the subsequent public gloating, displayed an ugly side of China and would hurt its image abroad. To Murong Xuecun, a well-known Chinese author, the program revealed a national psyche, fed by decades of Communist Party propaganda, that craves vengeance for the years of humiliation by foreigners. “It proves that hatred-education still has a market in China,” he said in an interview.

At Bloomberg World View, Adam Minter described the spectacle as a “graphic extension” of a broader political strategy:

[…] Over the last two years the Chinese government has found itself embroiled in increasingly dangerous sovereignty disputes with its Southeast Asian and Japanese neighbors. So far, diplomacy has been the preferred course of action. Yet on China’s decidedly nationalistic and highly influential microblogging platforms, diplomacy — especially on sovereignty issues — is unpopular and viewed as a sign of weakness.

In response, the Chinese government and its official media tribunals have carefully ratcheted up the aggressive rhetoric, especially toward Japan, since the fall of 2012, reminding Chinese that they will not be bullied by outside forces. Rather, if there will be any bullying, China will be doing it.

A 2012 Reuters investigation into the Mekong murders described the web of trafficking in drugs, humans and endangered animals in Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle”, and Naw Kham’s legendary or perhaps mythical place in it. The report also highlighted the possible involvement of an elite Thai anti-drugs unit in the killings.

China’s Global Times recently revealed that authorities had considered killing Naw Kham with a drone strike instead of capturing him. See more on China’s drone programs, and more on the death penalty in China, via CDT.

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Post tags: CCTV, death penalty, diplomacy, drug trafficking, execution, Golden Triangle, human rights watch, Japan, legal system, Mao era, Mekong river, murders, Murong Xuecun, Myanmar, Southeast Asia, territorial disputes, thailand
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Naw Kham was the ring leader of a large drug trafficking outfit based in the Golden Triangle – a mountainous drug-producing region in Southeast Asia covering areas of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

“One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive,” Liu told the Global Times.

It is a noteworthy revelation as senior Chinese officials rarely make public acknowledgents about the country’s ability to project power overseas.

The disclosure also highlights the level of technological sophistication in terms of China’s ability to surveil targets in Southeast Asia. This will likely draw concern from the Asean neighbours wary of China’s military capabilities.

A report last year by the U.S. Defense Science Board described the pace of China’s drone development as “worrisome” and “alarming”, and suggested that Beijing might “easily match or outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the technology gaps and become a formidable global competitor in unmanned systems.” China’s drone programmes to date have focused on surveillance, however, particularly of its long coastline. A small Chinese UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle, was spotted in the East China Sea by a Japanese destroyer in June 2011, and both China and Japan have indicated plans to deploy drones over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.

The Obama administration’s opaque drone campaign in the Middle East, on the other hand, may have claimed as many as 4,700 lives, fuelling anger in the region and some opposition within the United States. Observers have long anticipated that other countries would eventually join in: in an October op-ed at The Washington Post, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker warned that America was setting important precedents, and urged the adoption of clear standards and practices for drone warfare.

Others, from European allies to Russia, China and Iran, are acquiring and beginning to use drones for surveillance — eventually, they will use them for killing as well. What would we say if others used drones to take out their opponents — whether within their own territory or internationally? Imagine China killing Tibetan separatists that it deemed terrorists or Russia launching drone strikes on Chechens. What would we say? What rules would we urge them to abide by?

The drone strike plan also demonstrates the progress of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system, whose availability expanded in December to commercial users across the Asia-Pacific. From Jane Perlez at The New York Times:

China’s global navigation system, Beidou, would have been used to guide the drones to the target, Mr. Liu said. China’s goal is for the Beidou system to compete with the United States’ Global Positioning System, Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo, Chinese experts say.

Mr. Liu’s comments on the use of the Beidou system with the drones reflects the rapid advancement in that navigation system from its humble beginnings more than a decade ago.

The experimental navigation system was started in 2000 and has since expanded to 16 navigation satellites over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, according to an article in Wednesday’s China Daily, an English-language state-run newspaper. The Chinese military, particularly the navy, is now conducting patrols and training exercises using Beidou, the newspaper said.

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Post tags: Barack Obama, drones, drug trafficking, drugs, Global Times, Mekong river, military technology, Myanmar, United States
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“Our company has delivery stations in every part of China,” boasts one Chinese-language Web site, with photos of illegal narcotics it sells. “We offer 24-hour delivery service to your door, and we have long-term and consistent supplies. If you just make one phone call, we’ll deliver to your hands in one to five hours.”

Another Chinese Web site offers meth wholesale for $19,700 a kilo, or deliveries to your door of smaller quantities in hundreds of cities around China. Even in remote Anhui Province, it delivers drugs in 21 different cities.

All this is completely illegal in China, where narcotics traffickers are routinely executed. But it doesn’t seem to be a top government priority, because these Web sites aren’t even closed down or blocked. Tens of thousands of censors delete references to human rights, but they ignore countless Chinese Web sites peddling drugs, guns or prostitutes.

Doesn’t it seem odd that China blocks Facebook, YouTube and The New York Times but shrugs at, say, guns?

Meanwhile, for Motherboard, Eveline Chao reports on the growing problem of methamphetamine production and use in China. As portrayed by the popular U.S. television show “Breaking Bad,” Mexico is the source of most of the meth in the U.S. But China is increasingly responsible for providing the chemicals that are used in the making of the drug:

Records of large drug busts involving meth in recent years–an increasingly common occurrence–tend to show a trail that leads back to China. Last January, the Mexican navy announced that a single bust had yielded 195 tons of meth chemicals in a Chinese shipment, following a six-week period that netted an additional 900 tons of precursor chemicals. In April, three tons of methylamine chloride, a chemical used in pharmaceuticals and pesticides, was found at LAX in a shipment from China; it was on its way to Mexico, where it was bound to be cooked into $40 million of methamphetamine for American consumers. The list gets longer.

American officials now estimate that 80 percent of the meth consumed in the US is Mexican-made–with ingredients from China. “The rising threat of new synthetic drugs requires a truly international response, and we look forward to extending our cooperative work with China to address the dangers that these substances pose to the citizens of both our countries,” Berit Hallberg, a spokesman for the White House’s drug czar, said in a statement to Stars and Stripes. James Rendon, the Coast Guard Rear Admiral in charge of the DoD’s Joint Interagency Task Force West, described the meth-from-China problem more simply: “It is a big problem, and it is getting bigger.”

In China–where crystal meth is generally called 冰 bing, or ice, and “doing meth” is called 溜冰 liu bing, or “ice skating”–the meth picture is a mirror image of that of the US. Both are large countries pocked with wide-open spaces that are ideal for homemade recipes of the smelly, noxious, explosive stuff. Whether you’re in Indiana or Shanxi, it’s in these rural spaces where meth consumption is most rampant, not least because it’s cheap and offers a lot of bang for your buck–users report a high that, unlike coke, lasts for hours.

Last week, NBC News reported on a drug bust in China which found almost 200 pounds of methamphetamines:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Post tags: drug addiction, drug trafficking, drugs, Gun laws, Internet control, nicholas kristof, prostitution
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A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced Naw Kham, a drug lord from Myanmar, and three of his subordinates to death for the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last year.

The six suspects, comprised of five people from Myanmar, Thailand and Laos and one stateless suspect, faced charges of intentional homicide, drug trafficking, kidnapping and hijacking or a combination of those criminal offenses. The suspects were ordered by the court to pay compensations totalling six million yuan (about 960,000 U.S. dollars).

All six defendants said they will appeal Tuesday’s verdict.

Naw Kham and his gang members were found to have masterminded and colluded with Thai soldiers in an attack on two Chinese cargo ships, the Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, on Oct. 5, 2011 on the Mekong River, the court said in an investigative report.

While four of the suspects were given the death sentence, another suspect was given a suspended death sentence, and one suspect was sentenced to eight years in prison, from AP:

Nine Thai soldiers who are accused of taking part in the killings previously surrendered but have not been tried or extradited. They remain in Thai military custody and are suspected of murder and concealing evidence, Deputy National Police Chief Police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said Tuesday.

Sailors shipping Chinese produce and manufactured goods down the Mekong have long complained of armed gangs that loot their boats or demand cash. Little action was taken to protect them until the Oct. 5, 2011, attack near the Thai-Myanmar border, which sparked Chinese demands for a thorough investigation.

The Bangkok Post reported a few days after the killings that local Thai authorities seized both the hijacked Chinese boats after a gun battle with the gang and found cargo that included amphetamine pills worth 100 million baht ($3.22 million), garlic, apples and fuel.

The murder occurred in the ‘Golden Triangle’, which runs through China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, and it is also known for its illegal drug trade. While the principal suspect, Naw Kham, has been identified as Burmese, the nationality of the other suspects is unknown, from AFP:

The reading of the verdicts was shown live on state television.

The trial finished in September after the gang of six men pleaded guilty to intentional homicide, drug trafficking, kidnapping and hijacking, state news agency Xinhua said in September.

The gang, based in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, was led by Myanmar national Naw Kham, who was one of the men sentenced to death.

At least one of the remaining five gang members is Thai, but the nationalities of the other four is unclear.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: death sentence, drug trafficking, Golden Triangle, hijack, murder, Myanmar, thailand
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On March 17, 2012, the Public Security Bureau in Chenzhou, in the central province of Hunan, said it was removing Huang Bailian as head of its drug squad.

Huang’s explanation for the move was simple: “This is retaliation.”

Three years earlier Huang, who is 48 years old and a 25-year veteran of the police force, cracked what he thought was a large drug trafficking case. However, before the case could be handed to prosecutors, his classification of it was changed to clear one suspect. Furthermore, some of the drugs seized during his arrests quickly went missing.

Evidence of the theft pointed to a subordinate of Huang’s, Wang Bin. Furthermore, there were suspicions that Wang and Huang Bailian’s boss, vice-captain of the drug squad Huang Zhongxiang, were protecting traffickers.

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Post tags: corrupt officials, corruption, drug trafficking, Hunan, Murong Xuecun, police corruption, Wen Jiabao
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The Thai military says the victims were killed upriver before their ships floated downstream into Thailand. But evidence gleaned from Thai officials and unpublished police and military reports suggests that some, if not all, of the sailors were still alive when their boats crossed into Thailand, and that they were executed and tossed overboard inside Thai territory.

Their assailants remain unknown. Initially, the prime suspect was a heavily armed Mekong pirate who terrorizes shipping in Myanmar. But then the investigation turned to nine members of an elite anti-narcotics taskforce of the Thai military.

New patrols by Chinese gunboats were supposed to restore peace to the region. But a visit to the Golden Triangle also found that attacks on Mekong shipping continue.

Incongruously, just across the river from where the ill-fated ships were found moored, on the Laos side of the triangle, Reuters also discovered a vast casino complex catering to Chinese tourists. Its Chinese owner regards it as a “second homeland”; others worry it could morph into a strategic Chinese outpost.

The second and most recent of the patrols mentioned by the Reuters, conducted by Chinese police in cooperation with counterparts from Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, ended earlier this month. In a weekend report, The Bangkok Post called the October murders “the tip of the iceberg of drug-related crime on the Mekong River”, claiming that the violence has caused sailors to avoid the river:

Chen Ling, a mechanic on board a Chinese cargo ship in Jinghong, which in Thai is known as Chiang Rung, in Yunnan province’s Xishuangbanna prefecture in southwest China, has worked with cargo boats on the Mekong River for almost 30 years.

He also worked as a temporary crewman for the Thai-owned Kasa Longkhamcruise boat on the return trip to Thailand, but only on the condition that he travelled back to Jinghong by car rather than the river to ensure his safety.

He told of a recent incident in which a Chinese cruise boat was attacked by an armed group using speed boats. Passengers and crew, including himself, were robbed, although nobody was hurt.

He said the murder of the 13 Chinese sailors had frightened many sailors on the river.

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Post tags: China, drug trafficking, Golden Triangle, Laos, Mekong river, murder, Myanmar, thailand
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On the eve of the 2003 International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the lives of four female drug dealers in the city of Wuhan were coming to an end. With the permission of the relevant departments and the subjects themselves, on 9pm on 2003 June 24th, this press photographer walked into the Wuhan No. 1 Detention Center and captured their last night spent at the detention center.

The photoseries follows the four women, among the approximately 20 prisoners executed that day, as they ate their final meals, picked out their last outfits, laughed, sang and cried in the company of prison guards and ordinary prisoners before they were led to a public sentencing area and then to the execution grounds. ChinaSMACK also translated a range of comments from Chinese netizens about the photos and the broader social implications of the executions, including the following:

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Post tags: death penalty, death sentence, drug trafficking, execution, netizens, online bulletin boards
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In March, police in the cities of Lanzhou and Xi’an in west China found some people were getting and selling drugs through chatting in online chatting room, which were usually inaccessible to outsiders.

New comers could only be allowed to enter the online chatting room after being introduced by “acquaintances” and performing drug-addiction through the online video, Liu said.

The MPS soon launched a nationwide battle to fight against online drug-related activities on Aug. 31, and started tightening the net to seize the suspects on Sept. 2.

Among the 12,125 arrested suspects, 66.2 percent are young people under 35 years old, and 2.6 percent are under 18, with the youngest being 14 years old, according to Liu.

China’s war against drugs also recently cut off a well-connected trafficking ring based in Guangxi and yielded the largest-ever drug bust in Hong Kong’s history.

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Post tags: chat rooms, drug addiction, drug trafficking, Internet, Ministry of Public Security
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Last Wednesday, Thai border troops seized drugs on board two Chinese-flagged ships coded Yi Xing 8 Hao and Hua Ping, after a gunfight of more than 30 minutes with drug traffickers, in Chiang Saen District, bordering Myanmar. One drug trafficker was reported to have been killed.

The police found bodies of Chinese sailors late last week. Three bodies, with hands tied and handcuffed behind their backs, were found on Friday. Another nine bodies were found on Saturday.

The bodies were identified as the crew of Yi Xing 8 Hao and Hua Ping. The police suspect drug traffickers had planned to use the hijacked ships to smuggle drugs into Thailand and the sailors were killed before the gunfire on Wednesday.

A Bangkok Post report sheds more light on the identity of the drug kingpin allegedly involved and the events surrounding the hijacking:

A gang run by Nor Kham, a Shan drug trafficker, is thought to be behind the grisly murders of 12 Chinese boat crew members whose bodies were found in the Mekong River, says the army.

Maj Gen Prakarn Chonlayuth, commander of the Pa Muang Task Force, said the gang hijacks ships plying the river and demands protection money from them.

If they refuse to pay, they kill the crew and take over the ships to deliver drugs from Burma to Thailand.

… Nor Kham, 40, wanted on Thai and Burmese arrest warrants for drugs trafficking, had expanded his illegal activities to collect protection money from Chinese-flagged cargo ships a few years ago, he said.

Authorities obtained intelligence that the Nor Kham drugs gang killed all crew members of any vessel which refused to pay the gang protection money. He believes that’s what happened in this case.

About 400 armed men are thought to belong to the Nor Kham drugs gang, said Permpong Chavalit, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board.

Meanwhile, an editorial in the Bangkok Post called on Thai and Chinese leaders to press the Burmese government to stop tolerating the drug trade in the Golden Triangle:

In 2000, the Wa strongman Pau Yu Chang promised Khin Nyunt, then a powerful member of the Burmese military junta, that he would end the drug trade by 2005.

Otherwise, he said infamously, “You can chop my head off”. It would be good to take up his offer, at least to the point of putting him under arrest. There are arrest warrants for him in Thailand and the United States. The US and Thai authorities also have warrants to arrest the Wa military leader Wei Hsueh-kang, and his corrupted Thai associate Surachai Ngernthongfu, alias Bang Ron, who has ruined the lives of thousands of his countrymen.

It would be an improvement to bring justice to these men and others. And good luck as well to the current drug crackdown under Ms Yingluck’s auspices. But for now, there is just one good solution. The new Burmese government can only be credible if it moves aggressively against the Pang Sang criminals and their drug factories, for a start. The very highest Thai and Chinese government leaders and diplomats must make this clear to Burma. The sooner the better.

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Post tags: Burma, drug trafficking, hijack, murder, thailand
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China has decided to “postpone the execution within the scope of the Chinese law,” the two nations said in a joint statement after Binay met with Wang Shengjun, president of CHINA’S Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and senior foreign policy officials.

“The Philippine side stated that it fully respects China’s law and the verdict of the SPC,” the statement continued. “The Philippines and China are determined to work together in the fight against transnational crimes. Including drug trafficking.”

Binay told CNN: “We express sincere appreciation to China for the SPC decision.”

China had previously refused the Philippine government’s pleas for clemency and it is unclear what prompted this sudden turn-around.

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Post tags: death penalty, drug trafficking, philippines
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Chinese courts handled more than 50,000 drug trafficking cases in 2009 and about 17,000 people received severe sentences – from five years in prison to a death sentence – up almost 9 percent from the year before, the Supreme People’s Court said Thursday.

Police seized nearly 28 tons of drugs last year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Saturday is the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, and China kicked up its state-run propaganda machine to show it is tackling drug abuse, a growing problem in the country.

A live China Central Television broadcast Friday showed more than two tons of drug packets neatly laid out in rows in the southern city of Dongguan. More drugs were being burned in a line of cauldrons nearby.

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Post tags: drug trafficking
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From the New York Times, read about Britain’s condemnation of the execution, and China’s defense of its actions:

British officials had pressed the Chinese courts to consider Mr. Shaikh’s history of mental disturbance and to allow an independent evaluation of his mental state. But China’s highest court, the Supreme People’s Court, rejected a last-minute appeal from the family and British officials and allowed the execution to go ahead as scheduled.

Two of Mr. Shaikh’s cousins, Soohail and Nasir Shaikh, who travelled to China to visit him in prison and make a last-minute plea for clemency, said they were “astonished at suggestions that Akmal himself should have provided evidence of his own fragile state of mind,” according to the BBC.

China defended its handling of the case at a regularly scheduled press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, The Associated Press reported. “We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British accusation,” said Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry.

In a statement released after the execution Tuesday, the court called drug crimes “serious criminal offences” that deserved severe punishment.

Xinhua has published the opinions of Chinese law professors who also defend the execution decision:

“According to China’s Criminal Law, the death sentence given to him is legitimate and it has nothing to do with human rights concerns,” said Wang Mingliang, professor of criminal law at Shanghai-based Fudan University.

“Some Western countries also retain capital punishment, and its existence does not equate to a lack of human rights,” Wang said.

Xue Jinzhan, professor of criminal law at the East China University of Political Science and Law, also in Shanghai, said the administration of the death penalty related to a country’s history, culture and other conditions.

China strictly enforced the law without discrimination in handling the case, Chinese legal experts told Xinhua.

“It’s human nature to plead for a criminal who is from the same country or the same family, but judicial independence should be fully respected and everyone should be equal before the law,” Xue said.

Roland Soong of ESWN has a collection of articles pertaining to the controversial case. Read also coverage from the BBC.

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Post tags: Akmal Shaikh, Britain, drug trafficking, execution
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Akmal Shaikh is due to be executed on 29 December after being convicted of heroin smuggling. His family claim a drugs gang exploited his mental illness to trick him into smuggling 4kg of heroin into China.

Efforts to save the life of Shaikh, 53, from north London, have intensified after the Chinese supreme court rejected his plea for clemency and upheld the death sentence yesterday.

Gordon Brown has written to the Chinese authorities pleading for the sentence to be set aside and today, in his first interview since a date for the execution was set, Shaikh’s brother told the Guardian of the family’s trauma.

Akbar Shaikh, 60, said: “We are begging the Chinese authorities to show compassion … and mercy. Basically I’m here begging for his life to be spared.”

Shaikh was convicted in November 2008 of drug smuggling and sentenced to death. He was originally arrested in September 2007 in Urumqi, north-west China, as he arrived in the country.

Jerome Cohen, professor of law at New York University School of Law, has commented on the trial’s proceedings and its lack of transparency. In the South China Morning Post:

Chinese legislation exempts from criminal responsibility someone unable to recognise or control his misconduct, and provides for reduction of punishment in cases of partial mental capacity. But Shaikh’s 30-minute first instance trial ignored this major aspect of justice.

By the time of Shaikh’s second instance trial, on May 26, the London-based rights organisation, Reprieve, had sent British forensic psychiatrist, Dr Peter Schaapveld, to Urumqi in the hope of conducting an examination that would confirm Shaikh’s condition and inform the court’s review. Unfortunately, without explanation, Schaapveld was denied an interview with Shaikh. He was also not permitted to attend the judicial hearing.

Moreover, the authorities, which had initially indicated that they would allow a local doctor to evaluate Shaikh, changed their mind. The reviewing court thus had the benefit of no expert opinion on this crucial issue. It did, however, apparently allow the defendant the opportunity, against the advice of his lawyers, to deliver a rambling, often incoherent, statement that caused the judges to openly laugh at him.

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Post tags: Britain, drug trafficking, execution, mental illness, Urumqi
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Eight people who had been sentenced to death for drug production and trafficking were executed Thursday in China amid intensified crackdowns ahead of the annual international anti-drug day, which falls on Friday.

The Supreme People’s Court said six Chinese nationals, five men and one woman, were executed Thursday morning. They were involved in four cases of drug production, trafficking or selling.

The court did not disclose the locations of these executions. The death penalty is usually imposed by local courts and subject to review and approval by the Supreme People’s Court.

The six were Wang Xilin, Lu Gang, Zhou Zhenjun, Wang Li, Li Ersa and Yan Chaomin, the court said at a press conference. In their cases, more than 400 kilograms of various drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine, were manufactured, trafficked or sold.

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Post tags: death penalty, drug, drug trafficking, execution
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The unusual case of Zhenli Ye Gon, who was arrested in Maryland last week following the discovery of $205 million of alleged drug money in his house in Mexico City, underscores how the same process of global sourcing that ripped apart the integrated industries of the 20th century, replacing them with networks of production scattered around the globe, is reconfiguring the drug trade, too.

…This pattern of global sourcing also points to big changes in the economics of Mexican crime. Following Mr. Ye Gon’s arrest, the head of Colombia’s national police warned that Mexico and Colombia would have to prepare to do battle against Chinese and Russian organized crime. Mr. Ye Gon is the first Chinese-born to be charged of drug trafficking in Mexico in at least a decade, according to Mexican news media reports.

But the irruption of Mr. Ye Gon into Mexican drug trafficking is also emblematic of much broader changes as Mexico adapts to China’s emergence in the global economy. [Full text]

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Post tags: drug trafficking, drugs, mexico, organized crime
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