Asia’s ‘El Chapo’ extradited to Australia: How Tse Chi Lop ran a multibillion-dollar meth empire
After a nearly two-year-long battle, Tse Chi Lop, Asia’s most-wanted alleged drug kingpin, has been extradited to Australia from The Netherlands.
Also known as Asia’s El Chapo — a nod to the most powerful drug trafficker in the world — Tse Chi Lop was arrested in January 2021 after he landed at Amsterdam’s Schipol International Airport on a flight from the Taiwan.
Australia’s charges against Tse relate to alleged operations from 2012 to 2013, where a A$4.4 million (Rs 25 crore) load of methamphetamine was trafficked into the country.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has alleged Tse is the suspected leader of Sam Gor — which is sometimes simply referred to as “The Company” — that dominates the $70 billion-per-year Asia-Pacific drug trade.
Let’s take a closer look at Asia’s El Chapo, Tse Chi Lop, and his alleged billion-dollar drug empire.
Who is Tse Chi Lop?
At first glance, 59-year-old Tse Chi Lop doesn’t hold anyone’s interest. A Canadian national born in China with his black hair parted down the middle and modest fashion sense, Tse doesn’t look like head of a drug cartel, but that’s exactly what he is alleged to be.
Tse is allegedly the “multinational CEO” of a $70 billion-a-year international drug syndicate known as “The Company,” or “Sam Gor”. According to a CNN report, The Company is accused of manufacturing synthetic drugs, mostly methamphetamine, in the under-policed jungles of Myanmar. From there, Tse’s syndicate moves the narcotics to nearby markets in Bangkok, as well as those much farther away such as in Japan and Australia.
According to the AFP, Tse’s cartel is considered responsible for 70 per cent of all illegal drugs entering Australia. His organisation is believed to launder a large portion of the illicit proceeds through casinos in Southeast Asia that are poorly regulated.
A Reuters investigation in 2019 has revealed that Tse was born in Guangdong Province, in southern China, and grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution. As he grew up, he joined the Big Circle Gang — a triad-like criminal enterprise — and rose to a mid-ranking member.
In 1998, Tse was arraigned on drug trafficking charges in New York and was found guilty of conspiracy to import heroin into America. If found guilty, he would have faced a life sentenced. However, Tse pled for leniency and he was freed from jail in 2006.
Tse then returned to his drug business and built an empire unlike any other. His business model was inventive and appealing to customers. If one of his drug deliveries was intercepted by authorities, it was replaced at no extra cost, or deposits were returned to buyers.
Asia’s ‘El Chapo’ extradited to Australia: How Tse Chi Lop ran a multibillion-dollar meth empire© Provided by Firstpost
Life of luxury
Investigations into Tse show that he’s enjoyed a life of luxury and has been a big spender. He’s always been very careful about his personal security and has been seen protected by an army of Thai kickboxers. AFP investigators say that he had eight working for him at a time, and they were regularly rotated as part of his security protocol.
Tse also liked big parties and hosted lavish ones each year at resorts and five-star hotels, flying in his family and entourage in private jets.
There’s an incident reported of him staying at a Thailand resort for a month, hosting vistors in shorts and a T-shirt. Tse is also fond of casinos and gambling and it has been said that he one lost €60 million (Rs 528 crore) in one night on the tables in Macau.
In the authorities’ net
In 2019, a multinational task force was formed to nab Tse and Australia was at the forefront of this 20-country effort.
Agencies from Asia, North America, and Europe launched “Operation Kungur”, which law enforcement officials said was by far the biggest ever international effort to combat Asian drug trafficking syndicates.
Their efforts finally culminated on 24 January 2021 when he was detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
What followed was a lengthy extradition trial, as the Canadian national denied involvement in drug trafficking and fought his extradition. Tse has denied all drug charges. “Mass media are calling me a drug kingpin but that is not true,” he had told court judges through interpreters, according to Dutch news agency ANP.
He also argued that the Australian police had illegally arranged for his expulsion from Taiwan to Canada to include a stop in the Netherlands so that he could be arrested there.
Reacting to the extradition, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Assistant Commissioner Krissy Barrett said that it a major victory for the force. “This arrest would be one of the most high-profile arrests in the history of the AFP,” she said, adding, “His arrest today is a culmination of a long-term AFP investigation into a transnational organised crime syndicate.”
Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, has said that sheer scale of The Company’s transnational drug trafficking operations put Tse in the same club as other notorious drug lords in recent times.
As he had told Reuters in 2019, “Tse Chi Lop is in the league of El Chapo or maybe Pablo Escobar. “The word kingpin often gets thrown around, but there is no doubt it applies here.”
