One-way Ticket: The Untold Story of the Bali 9
by Cindy Wockner and Madonna King
HarperCollins, $195
The opium trade is one of the few booming mainland industries Beijing is shy to boast about. But police say growing demand for heroin in China has transformed delivery of the drug. Droughts in Myanmar and disruptions to opium crops in Afghanistan caused by Taleban prohibition and the war on terrorism have also restricted supplies and reshaped the trade.
The old transport route out of the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Thailand and Laos) through mainland China to Hong Kong and on to the rest of the world became too risky from about 2001. Rising prices caused by scarcity forced drug cartels to diversify distribution. The risk was spread by transporting smaller quantities along varied routes in a greater number of shipments.
The drug is hidden in numerous ways, but human mules have become crucial. They dress as business travellers, migrants and western tourists and swallow the drug in balloons or strap millions of dollars' worth of the powder to their bodies. The packets are sprinkled with pepper to thwart sniffer dogs and luggage may contain a wooden item or food for the mule to declare at the airport as a bluff for customs officers. But that's about as sophisticated as it gets in the drug-courier business.
Western mules are lured by a carrot worth a fraction of their haul, along with a free flight and short holiday. If a mule is caught, the cartel chiefs are likely to have more on the same flight and others. Diversified delivery may be an inconvenience to the cartels, but the greater number of people involved in the trade probably adds layers of protection from police for those at the top.