Mandalay, Burma’s second major city, has replaced Tachilek, opposite Maesai, as the new nerve center of the country’s international drug trade, according to insider sources.

Most of the big time dealers have also departed from Homong (opposite Maehongson) and Nakawngmu (opposite Chiangmai), two other key markets on the border. “The number of big bosses connected to Kokang is conspicuously larger than those connected to the Wa,” said a 52-year old native of Kengtung, who feels no shame to admit he is a dealer as well as user.

The raison detre for the move, said another businessman, is the increased crackdown on the business since September under Chinese pressure in eastern Shan State that constitutes Burma’s part of the Golden Triangle:

On 10 September 2005, a 496 kg heroin shipment escorted by the United Wa State Army’s 2518th Independent Regiment commander Ta Pan, was seized in Mongpiang, 100 km west of Kengtung.

Another campaign that began in December until the end of January in Tachilek also netted an unprecedented 12 million ATS (Amphetamine Type Stimulant) pills.

Since then more drugs are being shipped from Mandalay, already reputed as a Chinese city in the heart of Burma, to its neighboring countries both by land and by water:

o Via Rangoon to areas adjoining Thailand
o Via Rangoon through the Gulf of Martaban to Thailand and other countries
o Via Kachin, Sagaing, Chin and Arakan to India and Bangladesh

On the Tachilek front, increased suppression has yet to kill the business but it is on tighter security. “In the past, you can either do it on credit, down payment or in kind,” said the dealer-user. “These days were long gone. Now you have to be a long-standing customer with full ready cash for a minimum of 200,000 pills to close a deal.”

Nevertheless, the ongoing political crisis in Thailand, say border watchers, has taken away most of the law enforcement agencies’ attention away from drugs, allowing millions of pills to escape to Bangkok.

“The crisis in Thailand is sort of a blessing to the drug traders,” claimed a businessman in Maesai. “Actually that’s also what has been happening in Burma for a long, long time.”