Ne Win gave 'Godfather of Heroin' open slather in Myanmar
A man dubbed the "Godfather of Heroin" by the US government and slapped with financial sanctions for allegedly helping to prop up Myanmar's brutal military junta through illegal business dealings died at the weekend. Lo Hsing Han was 80 years old.
A man dubbed the "Godfather of Heroin" by the US government and slapped with financial sanctions for allegedly helping to prop up Myanmar's brutal military junta through illegal business dealings died at the weekend. Lo Hsing Han was 80 years old.
His body lay in a glass coffin in the family home for a private ceremony yesterday, a long line of relatives, senior government officials and business leaders turning out to pay their final respects, one of the attendees said.
For decades, Lo Hsing Han was considered one of the world's biggest heroin traffickers.
In the 1990s, he and his son Stephen Law founded the conglomerate Asia World, allegedly as a front for their ongoing dealings in the international drug trade, said Bertil Lintner, author of The Golden Triangle Opium Trade: An Overview.
They quickly became two of Myanmar's most powerful business tycoons, winning contracts from the junta to run ports, build highways and oversee airport operations.
The US Department of Treasury, dubbing Lo Hsing Han the "Godfather of Heroin", put both father and son on the financial sanctions list in 2008.