The alleged boss of Asia’s biggest crime syndicate and one of the world’s most wanted men has been extradited to Australia and arrested on drug-trafficking charges, police said yesterday.
Chinese-born Canadian Tse Chi Lop, 59, is suspected of being the leader of an Asian cartel known as Sam Gor, a major global producer and supplier of methamphetamines.
He was expected to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday to answer a charge of “conspiracy to traffic commercial quantities of controlled drugs” after being extradited from the Netherlands.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Tse, dubbed Asia’s “El Chapo” in reference to Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman’s nickname, faces life imprisonment if convicted. Australian police hailed it as “one of the most high-profile arrests in the history” of the country.
The Sam Gor organization — or “The Company” — is believed to launder billions of US dollars in drug money through casinos, hotels and real estate in Southeast Asia’s Mekong region. Tse was detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in January last year after a decade-long hunt.
He had been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.
Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the arrest came after a “very complex investigation.”
“We allege this male is the head of a large transnational organized crime syndicate,” she said.
“By their very nature, these very senior figures within the syndicates obviously deliberately stay hands-off in terms of the business dealings,” she said. “That’s why it’s such a significant arrest and why it has taken a fair amount of time.”
Australian police said that the charges relate to a specific 2012-2013 operation transferring drugs from Melbourne to Sydney. A police sting at the time nabbed 27 people and netted 20kg of methamphetamine with a current street value of about US$3 million. A second man has also been arrested after being extradited from Thailand.
“The hard work of investigators, and the [Australian Federal Police] international network, has enabled these alleged offenders to be charged and face the justice system in Australia,” Barrett said.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
RSS