Khun Sa
In public the Burmese military claimed that they wanted to hang Khun Sa. They conducted small raids against him, and they carried out public bonfires of "heroin" (largely stones and grass). Despite the Burmese leadership's public attitude towards Khun Sa, they understood that he had long controlled Burma's most lucrative export crop (estimated at $600 million US per year in 1997), and by the 1990s he had co-opted many of the most high-ranking military leaders in the country. By 1996 they made a secret agreement for Khun Sa to surrender to the Burmese government, under the understanding that he would receive government protection and that he would not be extradited.