This Canadian citizen of Chinese origin is suspected of directing the immense cartel known as Sam Gor, an important producer and world supplier of methamphetamines.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
The alleged drug baron in Asia was arrested for drug trafficking and extradited to Australia, Australian police announced on Thursday, December 22. TSE Chi Lop, 59, is one of the most sought after men in the world. He is suspected of being the leader of the immense Asian cartel known as Sam Gor, an important world producer and supplier of methamphetamines, a powerful synthetic drug.
This Canadian citizen of Chinese origin is often compared to the Mexican drug baron Joaquin Guzman, nicknamed “El Chapo”. The latter was sentenced to life in 2019 in New York for his role at the head of the Sinaloa cartel.
tse Chi Lop is expected to appear on Thursday before the Melbourne court of first instance to respond to the accusation of “conspiracy for the traffic of commercial quantities of controlled drugs”, after being extradited from the Netherlands to Australia . If he is found guilty, he risks life imprisonment.
arrested in January 2021 near Amsterdam
The Australian police praised “one of the most spectacular arrests in history” in the country. Sam Gor would whiten billions from drugs, in particular via casinos, hotels and real estate companies in the Mekong region, Southeast Asia.
tse chi lop was arrested in January 2021 at Schiphol International Airport near Amsterdam after a decade of hunt, and was the subject of a red notice from Interpol.
The assistant commissioner of the Australian federal police, Krissy Barrett, said that the arrest had intervened after “a very complex investigation”. “By their very nature, these high-ranking personalities within the unions [of crime] obviously remain deliberately away from commercial transactions”, hence the importance of this arrest and the length of the hunt, a- she explained.
The Australian police said that the accusations aimed at TSE Chi Lop are linked to a drug transfer operation from Melbourne in Sydney carried out in 2012-2013. At the time, a police stroke of the police had made it possible to stop twenty-seven people and to recover 20 kilos of methamphetamine, of a current market value of about three million dollars (more than 2.8 million of euros).
A second man was also arrested after being extradited from Thailand. “The hard work of investigators and the international network [of the Australian federal police] made it possible to charge these alleged offenders and to confront them with Australian justice,” said M Me Barrett.