108TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS

THE EVOLUTION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING
IN THE PACIFIC RIM
Lau Yuk-kuen*
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper concerns the evolution of
drug trafficking in the Pacific Rim and themany changes that have taken place in the
drug trafficking scene in this region during
the past thirty years. It also covers apersonal view on the probable evolution ofillicit trafficking in the Pacific Rim.
Broadly speaking, the drugs that are
being abused in the region can be divided
into four major categories. These areopiates, cannabis, cocaine and psychotropic
substances. In each of the following
sections, the focus is on the current
developments in the illegal trafficking ofthese substances in the Pacific Rim.
II. OPIATES
Opiates are considered first, not only
because they are the oldest problem among
the four categories, but also because they
are the most widely abused in many
countries. The term, “opiates” includes
opium, morphine and heroin.
During the past thirty years, manychanges have taken place in the illegal drugtrafficking scene. Changes have included
the personalities involved, the smuggling
methods, the form of the drug being
smuggled, the routes used and the locationsof transit and storage centres. One thingwhich has gone virtually unchanged overthis long period of time is the direction of
the traffic.

* Director of Crime and Security, Hong Kong Police
Force Headquarters, Hong Kong.

Thirty years ago, the direction of thetraffic in opiates was from the southeast
to northwest, that is, from the source of
their production in the Golden Triangle(the mountainous area lying between
Thailand, Laos and Burma, now the
Republic of Myanmar), to the United States
where the drugs were sold at prices up to
20 times as high as the original cost in the
producing country. After thirty years, thedirection of traffic remains virtuallyunchanged.
On the production side, some changes
have taken place, but these have been
related more to the personalities involved
than anything to do with the drug itself.
Even the surrender of the infamous opiate
drug lord Khun Sha in the Golden Triangle
to the authorities in 1996 does not seem tohave a significant lasting impact on theavailability of the drug in the region.
To the pessimists, it can be verydisheartening that, despite the resourcesthat have been spent on the prevention andinterception of drugs, and or the education
and rehabilitaion of drug abusers, there
has virtually been no change in the supply
and demand of the drug over this thirtyyear period. Law enforcement officers,
however, see the situation quite differently.
Compared to thirty years ago, numerous
new check points have been set up along
the routes and borders between the
producing and the consumer countries asa result of the joint efforts of governments,
making it much more difficult for drugtraffickers to capitalize on any
opportunities.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 54
Also, thirty years ago, opiate drugs weretransported from the producing countries
in large consignments using sea routes tointermediary countries in the region before
they were transported onward to theUnited States. At that time, many
countries in the region were not yet openedup, hence the choice of intermediarycountries was quite limited. Hong Kong,
being one of the more conveniently locatedcities between the United States and theGolden Triangle, was quite naturally
chosen by traffickers as one of their transit
centres. The capital, connection and theexpertise required for transporting a large
quantity of drugs in single consignmentsin those days, when internationaltransportation was far less well developed
than today, meant that the trafficking
syndicates at that time had to be wellorganized.
In terms of seizures, the sixties andseventies must have been the more
rewarding period for drug enforcement
officers. They had fewer but bigger targets,and the drugs seized in each significant
case could be weighed in hundred-kilogram
units. Around that time, indeed up to theearly eighties, the Hong Kong police had
successfully intercepted many of theselarge drug consignments, and had brought
the syndicates involved to justice.
To rid themselves of their reputation as
major opiate transit centres, intermediarycountries sought, in addition to
enforcement actions, to strengthen
legislative controls to make the life of drugtraffickers more difficult. Some chose to
introduce capital punishment as adeterrent. Hong Kong chose to tighten up
the control of the chemical substances
required for converting morphine base toheroin, and to introduce legislation topunish drug traffickers who used Hong
Kong as their operating base, even though
the drugs involved never transited through62

Hong Kong.
Both measures appear to have produced
positive results. The joint shortage of therequired chemicals, and effective
enforcement action, have together forced
drug traffickers to relocate their refining
centre away from Hong Kong, reducing thechance of being caught red handed during
the refining process. Morphine base, whichis the basic ingredient for manufacturing
heroin, and which at one time constituted
a significant portion of the opiate drugs
seized in the territory, has dropped fromthe 551kg seized in 1972 to zero in 1983
and after. The amended drug legislation
has also given the enforcement agencies apowerful weapon to fight againstinternational drug traffickers byprosecuting them for conspiracy to traffic
in drugs outside Hong Kong. Many once
infamous traffickers have ended up behindbars for lengthy periods of imprisonment,with sentences of up to 30 years.
The effective law enforcement inintermediary countries has seen many
drug traffickers choose alternative routes
to avoid losses. Increasingly they use other,less conveniently located, countries astransit centres even though this means
greater costs and, in some cases, if caught,a more severe punishment. It is thechanging patterns of transnational drugtrafficking that have fostered a closeworking relationship among drug
enforcement agencies in the region,
something which, in the view of many drug
enforcement officers, is the most importantelement for tackling international drugtrafficking.
New air routes and the opening up ofcountries in the region have speeded upchanges in the last decade. The direct
supply of high-grade heroin rather thanmorphine base or opium from the source
countries means that drug trafficking

108TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
syndicates are less dependent onpharmaceutical expertise. The prerequisitethat a syndicate must have a chemist andrefining centre before it could act as aninternational broker has gone. Anyone withthe required connections can now, almost
single-handedly, arrange his own supply ofheroin, in small consignments, from thesource to the consumer countries. The
amount of capital required for financing
this type of small run is substantiallyreduced, so is the size of the syndicates.
The collapse of the large syndicates has
seen an increase in the number of smaller
syndicates operating under much less wellorganized structures.
Syndicates of all sizes have increasingly
turned to countries which are lessexperienced in drug enforcement as theirtransit and storage centres. This is only
natural. In countries with less experiencein drug enforcement, the drug traffickers
stand a lower chance of being caught. It is
for this reason that countries which wererarely mentioned among drug enforcement
officers in the sixties and seventies have
gradually emerged as preferredintermediary countries by opiate
traffickers, and a new chapter ofinternational cooperation in the fightagainst drug trafficking has begun.
One of the countries exploited byinternational drug traffickers of late has
been China. Its first major joint operation
with drug enforcement agencies outside thecountry can be dated to 1988. In thatground-breaking joint operation 60 kg ofheroin were concealed by a drug syndicate
in gold fish that were shipped to the UnitedStates from Shanghai, China via HongKong. The operation was very complicatedin view of the protocols and the formalities
that the enforcement agencies in the threeplaces had to go through, but was very
successful resulting in the arrest of a totalof 14 members of the syndicate including

i t s m a s t e r- m i n d . A c l o s e w o r k i n g
relationship has since developed between
the agencies and has been instrumental to
the subsequent neutralization of a major
drug trafficking syndicate in southern
China. This, in 1996, resulted in the seizureof some 600 kg of heroin.
To sum up, the main direction of trafficof opiate drugs has been from the southeastof the region to the northwest, crossing the
Pacific Ocean. This is likely remain so in
the next few decades, although alternative
markets have come to the fore as a resultof economic development throughout theregion. The syndicates involved in the trade
have increased in number but now operate
under a less well organized structure.
Increasingly, emigration will see more
networks of contacts between persons inthe source countries and in the consumer
market, based upon the common cultural
identity of members, marking
international drug trafficking no longer a
privileged area for sophisticated criminal
syndicates. Drug traffickers will continue
to explore new routes to minimize theirrisk, and countries in the region which are
currently not attractive to them for lack oftransportation or communication facilities
will soon find themselves being used astransit centres as and when they improvetheir facilities. The development of newroutes from the Golden Triangle in the west
to east and southern Chinese cities, as an
example, is now well documented;
something which was outside theimagination of even the most creative
thinking drug enforcement officers say 30
years ago.
III. CANNABIS
Compared to the opiates, cannabis has
a shorter history of abuse, at least on theeastern side of the Pacific Rim. Thirty years
ago, in Hong Kong, cannabis was seen as asymbol of the liberal western society, and63

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 54
was abused only by a handful of expatriate
people. The main growers of cannabis are,according to the Hong Kong seizure record,
Cambodia, Colombia, Laos, Mexico, thePhilippines and Thailand, while the mainmarkets would appear to be in the UnitedStates and Europe.
However, the westernization of Asia’s
own countries provides an ever growing
market for a drug which is popularly
thought of as less addictive than most. Take
Hong Kong as an example. For the ten-year
period between 1978 and 1987, a total of
743 kg of the drug were seized, compared
to 20,826 kg in the following ten-year
period. Indications were that, of the 20,826
kg seized, only some 7,200 kg had been
intended to be on-shipped to overseas
markets. The amount which is believed tohave been for local consumption has
increased by almost twenty times.
The rise in abuse of cannabis may
eventually equal that of opiates, as the
drug has been widely seen as a relatively
harmless one. The belief that cannabis isless harmful is reinforced by the extremely
low sentencing tariffs meted out by the
courts, and the frequent calls for its
legalisation in many countries.
The debate regarding the legalisation orde-criminalisation of cannabis is conductedon many levels, many of them political.
Social issues aside, there is little doubt in
the minds of many drug enforcement
officers that there are cases in which
progression towards opiate abuse has been
facilitated by initial experimentation withcannabis. In their experience, addicts do
not respond to situations with any degreeof common sense. The search for a stronger
experience has been quoted by many
addicts as the reason for abusing opiates.

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IV. COCAINE
All drugs that are widely abused today
have their own legitimate use. Cocaine is
no exception. The drug, in the limited
amounts that could be ingested from thechewing of the raw leaves, helped
indigenous natives in South America tofunction at high altitudes on a low-levelsubsistence diet. The upsurge in its abuse
would appear to be a direct result of theboom years in North American society.
Greater wealth and opulent lifestyles led
to experimentation with a drug which wasconsidered safe as it was not associatedwith needles or the less salubrious side ofthe drug culture. Like cannabis in the
1960s, it became fashionable to take “coke”
in the 1980s and 1990s. In the lower levelsof society, the major impact is moredefinitely attributable to the cheap,
smokable form now known as “crack”.
The source countries for cocaine continue
to be Peru and Bolivia, with processing
taking place in Columbia. Successful action
against the infamous cartels has led to thedevelopment of smaller, lower-profile
syndicates, in the same way as the opiate
scene has developed in Asia. The popularity
of cocaine goes through peaks and troughs,
and seizures have shown a notable decline
in the Americas over recent years. There
have been indications that traffickers
would seek to enter East Asian markets
where other stimulants are prevalent,
However, the high transportation costs andlack of significant Latino communities in
East Asia, which could provide trusted
middlemen, have hampered efforts in thisrespect. The current rising market foramphetamines in Asia would tend toindicate that cocaine will form only a smallpart of overall drug seizures in this sectionof the region.

108TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
V. PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES

VI. THE BROADER VIEW

After the opiates, cannabis and cocaine
which are relatively natural products, theworld has now seen a gradual shift tosynthesized drugs. The use and traffickingof amphetamines and their derivatives are
now increasing throughout the Region.
Chemical synthesis does not create areliance on large expanses of land or theweather when manufacturing
amphetamines. Harvesting periods are ofless importance in the clandestine
manufacture of amphetamines although
one of the necessary precursor chemicals
remains plant-based ephedrine. It has thus
been inevitable that where easier, and lessvisible methods of drug production are
invented, the illegal syndicates will turnto them for profit.

Having examined developments in theillegal trafficking of different categories ofdrugs, it is useful to examine the broader
picture of the Region. The term “PacificRim” encompasses the land masses which
either border, or lie within, the world’s
largest ocean-the Pacific. The physical andcultural characteristics of the area’s
inhabitants are extremely diverse. Due toits enormous size, the Pacific Ocean has
acted as a formidable natural barrier tocultural exchanges, not only in early times
but also in modern times.

The expansion of what is described as
the “rave party” or “dance scene”
throughout the region and the subsequent
abuse of the tablets associated with it, hasbegun here as it did in Western cultures,and is likely to continue for the foreseeable
future. Tablets such as the Ecstasy family
are now generally thought of as “safe”
drugs by those who abuse them.
The opening up of the two chemical
giants-Russia and China-and theagricultural bases they represent have had
definite effects on amphetamine abuseworldwide. Factories producing MDMA are
allegedly rife in Poland and other counties
of the old Soviet Bloc, while China isallegedly the largest supplier of organic
ephedrine (the main precursor formethylamphetamine “ICE”). Syndicates
based in China would appear to be theprincipal suppliers of ICE in the Region,for Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines andthe Republic of Korea.

Politically, the region is as diverse as its
peoples. Some countries are highly
conservative, while others are very liberal.
Some countries have governments drawn
from the military, some are communist led,
while others are more akin to Western styledemocracies.
Socially, there is an equally wide
spectrum. The Pacific Rim includes someof the richest nations as well as some ofthe poorest. In terms of the legal systems
in place, the nations of the Pacific Rim areequally diverse. Different laws and judicial
practices exist, together with different
standards of proof or admissibility ofevidence.
It is against this background ofdifference that the enforcement agencies
in the region have achieved far more
successes than in most other areas of cooperation. Most of the countries of the
Pacific Rim are signatories to the various
international treatise and conventions in
respect to drug trafficking. Even in the caseof some of the poorer economies where
there may be a lack of financial resources
or expertise to tackle the trade in illegal
drugs, genuine attempts are still being
made to join forces to combat thetraffickers.

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In addition to international co-operation,
another powerful weapon that has been
adopted by nations against the illegal trade
has been the introduction of legislation toempower courts to confiscate the proceedsof drug trafficking. The significance of thismove is threefold.
Firstly, confiscation strikes directly at
the power base of the drug syndicates,
instantly stripping them of their assets
once caught and convicted, making it
difficult for them to recover.
Secondly, confiscation provides nations
with an immediate financial incentive to
put more resources into drug enforcement,
as it can effectively shift a proportion of
the financial burden of fighting drugtrafficking from the government to the drugtraffickers, who now finance the authorities
with their ill gotten gains when caught.
Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly
from the viewpoint of law enforcement, thisapproach opens up a whole new area ofinvestigation which is much more revealing
than the traditional methods. By following
the money trail rather than the drug trail,
investigators now find they have a muchbetter chance of identifying the ‘Mr. Big’ of
their targeted syndicates, and of bringing
him to justice.
This new weapon was used in the UnitedStates in the 1980’s, and has now becomea standard item in many of the Pacific Rim
nations’ anti-drug trafficking policy. In
terms of hard figures, Hong Kong has
restrained or confiscated assets worth some
US$63.5 million within the eight years
since the confiscation law was introduced.
VII. THE FUTURE
The foregoing has been largely positive.
However, despite concerted attempts to
reduce illegal drug abuse through66

treatment and education, the consumer
demand for drugs seems to have increased
rather than decreased. This has createdever increasing financial opportunities forthe trafficker to exploit.
Of particular concern must be theincreasingly addictive nature of thederivatives now available. The
modernization of communications andtransportation systems throughout theworld have not only enabled a growth in
the sophistication of trafficking syndicates,
but also expanded the markets throughincreased exposure to drug abuse. Hugefinancial rewards from such illegal
enterprises can now be hidden throughnumerous legal and illegal financial
vehicles and the scale almost defies theimagination. The annual turnover of someof the larger syndicates is estimated to
exceed that of some smaller nations. Now
more than ever, as the next century
approaches, the strengthening ofinternational co-operation will be ofparamount importance with globalizationof the drug trade.
As to the most widely abused drugs ofthe future, it is fairly easy to see that there
has been a shift towards synthetic drugs.
The reasons for this are apparent: large
areas of land are no longer required andproduction is no longer limited to the two
harvest seasons each year, each dependent
upon the weather. Synthetic drugs, being
far more potent, weight for weight, theirtransportation is much easier, and thisincreased potency can produce such intense
effects that a craving for repetition or
addiction can be generated by one or two
exposures. This is contrary to the carefully
fostered view that such drugs, which
require no injection, are far safer. There
are already suggestions that Thailand, asource country for heroin, now has an
addict population which seems to haveshifted almost completely to the abuse of

108TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
ICE because this drug, a stimulant rather
than a depressant, is so much more intense
and addictive.
VIII. CONCLUSION
For those who have been involved inattempting to reduce the trafficking in
drugs of abuse, it is obvious that the region
still suffers from a significant drug
problem. While there is still a large demandfor heroin, cocaine and cannabis, we are
now seeing an ever increasing trend
towards amphetamine-related andsynthetic drugs. The traditional
approaches adopted to target drug barons
may not have the same effect whensynthesis can be used to create a drug
supply so simply and easily.
It is not known what new drugs may
enter the market in the next few decades,
a similar situation to that which precluded
the prediction of Cocaine, ICE and Ecstasy,
becoming common drugs of abuse. At thesame time, technological change are taking
place at such a pace that they may rapidly
make currently used enforcement tactics
outdated and ineffective. The search foranswers to new challenges must, therefore,
continue.
If any one lesson, learnt from theexperience of the past thirty years, was tobe singled out as of overriding importance,
it would be that the globalisation of crime
had to be met by a globalisation oflegislative and enforcement efforts tocounter it. Today, fewer barriers exist andofficers from different nations are moreable to share their experience, establish
working contacts and explore new ideas.
It is in this sharing that new solutions canbe found.

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