Key Drug Tycoon in Gold Triangle Area Arrested

Key Drug Tycoon in Gold Triangle Area Arrested

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Tan Xiaolin, a key drug tycoon in the Gold Triangle Area, has been arrested through collaboration efforts between Chinese and Myanmar police, Chinese police said here Friday.

Tan is a key figure among the new generation of drug tycoons in the border area between China and Myanmar that emerged in the 1990s, the police said.

Tan's group is the largest drug smuggling racket cracked by Chinese police over the last five decades, according to Sun Dahong, deputy head of the Yunnan provincial Bureau of Public Security.

According to the police, Tan was born in southwest China's Sichuan Province in 1962. He went to Myanmar in 1993.

Since 1995, Tan's group has grown into one of the largest armed drug smuggling groups in the Gold Triangle Area, operating a massive underground network of drug trafficking and money laundering.

Chinese police has been following Tan for several years and have collected a large amount of evidence against him in their investigations.

Based on intelligence provided by Chinese police, Myanmar police finally tracked down Tan on April 20 and transferred him to the Chinese side through a bilateral agreement.

Before that, the Chinese police had launched a round-up of Tan' s followers in China, arresting 18 members and delivering knock- out blow to the group, the police official said.

Since 2000, Chinese police have arrested 39 members of Tan's group, confiscating three tons of heroin, 28 motor vehicles, a large batch of telecommunications equipment and a large amount of drug money, Sun said.