Khun Sa
Khun Sa (February 17, 1934 to October 26, 2007) was a Shan warlord commonly known as the “Opium King”. During his lifetime, Khun Sa served both a military role and that of a drug lord. He ran a significant portion of the opium trade in the Golden Triangle. The Golden Triangle is a key opium-producing region in the mountainous areas overlapping Laos, Thailand and Burma.
As a young man, Khun Sa took on military roles, forming his own militia in 1963 in support of Gin Ne Win’s Burmese government. By the mid-1960s, his growing militia was operating independently and in direct support of his efforts in the opium trade. Khun Sa was a prisoner of the Rangoon government in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but returned to the opium trade following his release in the mid-1970s.
A U.S.-supported assassination attempt in 1981 failed, but military efforts in 1982 forced Khun Sa and his forces from Thailand to Myanmar. In 1985, Khun Sa joined forces with a number of other military groups in the region, expanding his power and control. Khun Sa retained control of a significant portion of the opium trade from the Golden Triangle. The drug trade, including the activities of Khun Sa, contributed significantly to ongoing political unrest in Southeast Asia.
Between 1974 and 1994, the share of opium in New York City coming from the Golden Triangle increased from five percent to 80 percent. The quality of heroin from the Golden Triangle was the best available, with a typical purity of around 90 percent. Opium trafficked by Khun Sa made up a significant proportion of that available on the streets of New York, after the drug was processed into heroin.
During the late 1980s, Khun Sa offered to allow Australia, and later the United States, to purchase his annual opium production; however, both declined. Indicted in 1989, Khun Sa made an international offer to largely stop the drug trade from the Golden Triangle, but this was again refused. Khun Sa may have surrendered to Burmese officials in 1996, but was allowed to live out the rest of his life as a free man in Rangoon. He was never extradited to the United States to stand trial.