Caught by relentless law enforcers time and again, drug smugglers have to keep inventing new tricks to stay ahead of the game, according to informed sources on the Sino-Burma border.
The most well-known is to encase heroin – it is almost always heroin – inside logs crossing the border from Burma into China. “But successful smugglers never employ the same tricks more than twice,” says a 60-year old Shan businessman who speaks Chinese and is well versed in the Chinese way of life.
According to him and others, drugs have been carried in:
2001-2002 Water melons
2003 Pickled bamboo shoots
2004 Scrap iron
2005-2006 Coal and charcoal
2007 Dry tea leaves
“In 2008, some smugglers began buying newborn infants from poor families, saying they were childless and wished to adopt them,” said the Chinese-speaking Shan. “They usually paid Yuan 5,000-6,000 (US$ 780-930) per child.
The infant was then disemboweled and filled up with drugs, administered disinfectants and perfumes to hide the stench, and carried across the border. “Like other methods, it was quite popular for a while,” he said. “But the police later got wise to it, and it had to be abandoned.”
The latest technique employed last year was to insert the drugs inside the bowels using oil from condoms made in Thailand “because it is the slickest,” according to a source from Mongla. “One can carry half a kilo to one kilo this way.”
In February, officials from Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), caught 35 women carriers before crossing the border into Xixuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture. The women told the officials their destination was Simao, north of Jinghong (Kenghung in Shan).
“Since then, we haven’t caught anyone carrying drugs this way,” said an official. “But it doesn’t mean that the smugglers have run out of tricks. Right now they must already be using newer methods.”
China is known as the Black Hole for heroin. To many drug entrepreneurs, it is not only a destination country, but also a transit country.
