New York: Eight druglords in Myanmar were charged in absentia in a US court Monday with operating one of the world’s largest heroin producing and trafficking groups in Southeast Asia’s notorious Golden Triangle area.

The eight members of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a 16,000-strong group which styles itself as an independence movement fighting for an ethnic Wa state, were charged with the cultivation of opium in Eastern Myanmar.

They were also charged with the manufacture and distribution of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States and throughout the world.

Led by “drug kingpin” Wei Hsueh Kang, who has a two-million-dollar bounty on his head, the gang was also accused of laundering narcotics proceeds through seemingly legitimate businesses, according to an indictment unsealed in Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York.

The UWSA is one of the largest heroin producing and trafficking organizations in the world and was responsible for the production of more than 180 tonnes of opium in 2004, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

Monday’s indictment also seeks the forfeiture of assets of the eight, including in Asian business network Hong Pang Group, whose companies are located or doing businesses in Thailand, Myanmar, Hong Kong and China.

“We are committed to stopping the flow of dangerous narcotics into our communities by going straight to the source and putting international drug traffickers out of business,” said US attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.

The charges were filed following “Operation Warlord” led by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with cooperation from Royal Thai Police as part of a bigger effort to combat heroin trafficking in Southeast Asia.

The UWSA controls large segments of Eastern Myanmar in the heart of the infamous Golden Triangle of heroin production straddling Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

Since 1985, the eight defendants had imported more than a tonne of heroin, with a retail value of one billion dollars, into the United States alone, and vast amounts throughout the world, DEA records showed.

More recently, they began production of methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant, for export to the United States and elsewhere.

About 12,000 methamphetamine tablets, labeled with the UWSA logo, have been seized by the DEA at mail facilities located within the United States.

The indictment alleged that the defendants controlled all decision-making on the drug trade in their territory, including taxing of narcotics shipments and drug refineries, and the collection of “lucrative” narcotics proceeds.

In return, they provided security for heroin and methamphetamine laboratories, as well as for drug caravans smuggling the drugs from Eastern Myanmar to Thailand, China, and Laos where independent brokers smuggle shipments to global distribution groups in Asia, the United States and Europe.

Aside from Wei Hsueh Kang, a special advisor to UWSAs Central Committee, the others facing heroin and methamphetamine trafficking charges in the United States were: Wei Hsueh Lung, the group’s “trade and finance minister” and several military commanders including Wei Hsueh Ying, Pao Yu Hsiang, Pao Yu Hua, and Pao Yu Liang.

Also charged were Pao Yu Yi, a political commissar and Pao Hua Chiang, a “trade and finance officer.”

The Weis are brothers, as are the Paos, with the exception of Pao Hua Chiang.

In addition to the charges filed against him Monday, Wei Hsueh Kang also faces charges stemming from an indictment filed in 1993 in New York for conspiring to distribute and import heroin into the United States.

If convicted, the eight each face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in jail and a maximum of life imprisonment, and a four-million-dollar fine.