Pubdate: Sat, 17 Oct 1998
Source: West Australian, The (Australia)
Page: 33
Fax: 61 8 94823830
Author: Owen Brown

GANGS EXPAND HEROIN

IN THE jungles of Yunnan and the high north-western plateau of
Xinjiang, China is developing a new series of sinister trade routes to
rival the famous Silk Road.

It is in these inaccessible areas that China's drug smugglers are
channelling their deadly bounty of heroin, bound for criminal gangs in
the west.

From the Golden Triangle which borders south-west China to the Golden
Crescent in central Asia, heroin traffickers are sourcing tonnes of
drugs which make their way to China's seaports and ultimately to Australia.

Police intelligence estimates that 80 per cent of the heroin sold on
Australian streets is sourced from South-East Asia, with half of that
imported through China using ports in and around Hong Kong.

With Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule in July last year, many triad
criminal groups spread their influence from the former British
territory into mainland China.

A Senate committee report found the economic boom in China especially
in the southern province of Guandong, bordering Hong Kong and the
Portuguese enclave of Macau, presented attractive opportunities for
the triad gangs.

The report cited Australian Federal Police intelligence which found
the importation of heroin was dominated by these Chinese-organised
crime groups.

China's biggest mainland triad group is the Big Circle, which
specialises in heroin trafficking.

These triads were originally secret societies which hoped to overthrow
the Qing rulers who conquered China from their base in Manchuria.

But as the Qings asserted their rule at the expense of the failed Ming
dynasty, the triads turned to more nefarious activities to justify
their existence.

Spreading from Hong Kong through Guandong to nearby Yunnan, the triads
have the money and connections to corrupt the underpaid mainland officials.

China's proximity to South-East and central Asia, where the opium
poppy is grown, combined with the vast unpatrolled borders, also makes
it difficult for authorities to keep out the drug menace. And China
has not been immune to the drug scourge.

Since the Chinese emperor tried to ban opiate imports, sparking the
Opium Wars with Britain last century, China has struggled to overcome
its addiction problem.

But widespread drug use which plagued China during colonial times was
thought to have been eradicated by decades of iron-listed
communist-rule.

Yet the opening-up process of the past two decades has not only
exposed China to much needed foreign investment but also lured a new
generation of drug barons.

In a country which still regularly carries out the death penalty for
drug trafficking, the stakes are extremely high for the smugglers.

Of the 662 people sentenced to death for drug trafficking last year,
432 were executed at public rallies to mark International Anti-drugs
Day on June 26.

In July and August this year, Chinese frontier defence police troops
smashed a total of 77 drug trafficking operations involving 83
suspects and the seizure of 219kg of heroin.

Fears about the use of south-west China as a staging point for drugs
roduced in the Golden Triangle led to the creation this year of the
Yunnan Provincial Anti-drug Bureau - the first of its kind in China.

Yunnan Public Security officials estimate that 80 per cent of the
heroin smuggled into China arrives across the province's border with
Laos and Burma.

In the early 1980s, police in Yunnan seized more than 70 tonnes of the
narcotic, yet despite their efforts a big amount of heroin still makes
its way to western drug dealers.

A Chinese Narcotics Control Office division chief said the defence
force composed of militia, customs officers and border residents now
patrolled the jungles of the south-west frontier.

But he warned that as scrutiny of the traditional Golden Triangle drug
routes intensified, traffickers were beginning to turn to the
so-called Golden Crescent in central Asia.

"Drug infiltration into China's north-western border area from the
adjacent Golden Crescent area is also on the rise," the officer said.

Not surprisingly, it is these areas in China which face the worst drug
addiction problems, reflected in the high incidence of AIDS cases
reported in southern and north-west China.
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Checked-by: Patrick Henry