Bangkok — Crime empires embedded in Asia’s “Golden Triangle” border areas are getting richer and more powerful, blurring the lines between the illicit economy and the legitimate one as they diversify from drugs to wildlife trafficking, cyber scams and money laundering, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The Golden Triangle, which cuts across the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, is home to an array of transnational crime organizations that run multibillion-dollar enterprises with virtual impunity — and they are embracing new technology to make more profit.

Myanmar, which borders five countries, has long been the epicenter of many illegal Asia-Pacific trades. It has sunk into chaos since a 2021 coup, allowing crime groups to flourish in the lack of governance, especially in remote Shan State, which borders Thailand to the south and China to its east.

“Some of the challenges in Myanmar are really at the heart of the criminality we are seeing in and around the Golden Triangle,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC deputy regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“At the same time, Myanmar’s border areas are now much more connected to the rest of the region, and the spillover into Southeast Asia is growing,” he told VOA.

Fortunes carved out on unfettered methamphetamine production are now being multiplied with cyber scam parks and illicit wildlife trafficking — including bear bile and elephant ivory into southern China — and then laundered through casinos, the U.N. agency said in its annual World Drug Report earlier this week.

In the absence of serious law enforcement threats to their empires, the criminal networks working alongside armed groups in the Golden Triangle are getting bigger and more sophisticated in the ways they wash their money. They have been using an “underground banking infrastructure” of casinos, crypto and traditional currency exchanges to clean billions of dollars, Hofmann said.

“The line between the formal economy and criminal business is increasingly blurred, and corruption weakens governance systems in the region,” he said.

Increased Golden Triangle meth production is pushing drugs into new markets, as the price of yaba — addictive caffeine-laced meth pills taken across the Mekong River — crumbles to as low as $1 to $2 per pill, or less than a can of coke.

But cheaper meth has not come with “fluctuations in purity,” the study stated, driving up addiction rates in a region with limited resources and patchy political will for drug treatment and rehabilitation.

“There is a stronger focus now on a more balanced approach to drug control, taking into account both supply and demand of illicit drugs,” Hofmann said.

“But as drugs are getting cheaper and more accessible, including for very poor and young people, it is clear much more needs to be done in resourcing prevention and treatment systems that take care of those amongst the most vulnerable parts of society,” he said.

Myanmar’s conflict and chaos have exacerbated poverty in the border areas, in turn driving a surge in opium poppy production by poor rural communities.

Just this week, Myanmar’s Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Yar Pyae said in a statement: “In 2023, Myanmar saw a slight increase in illegal opium poppy cultivation. Therefore, the persuasion by the Myanmar Tatmadaw, Myanmar Police Force, and various departments to local ethnic communities in drug prevention efforts through educational activities has led to the destruction of a total of 6,181 acres of poppy fields during the 2023-2024 opium poppy cultivation season. The alternative development management sector is continuously carrying out the implementation of opium alternative development activities, the crop substitution sector, and the livestock breeding sector.”

Yet, Myanmar is now the world’s number one opium producer, as the Taliban cracks down on poppy cultivation — the base ingredient of heroin — in Afghanistan, the study said.

The report also warned of mounting environmental damage caused by the rampant meth trade. While there are no studies in hard-to-reach areas, the UNODC said as a rule, every kilogram of methamphetamine produced creates 5 to 10 kilograms of toxic chemical waste.

Thailand alone burned upwards of 340 tons of seized narcotics in December and a further 20 tons on June 26, world drug day.

The kingdom has launched a renewed drug crackdown, but methamphetamine, ketamine and heroin continue to pour through its borders and ports to the rest of Southeast Asia.

“The drug producers are still operating along the borders, pumping out hundreds of thousands of pills a day,” Krisanaphong Poothakool, a prominent criminologist and former senior Thai police officer, told VOA.

The latest seizures with new packets of branding point to new players entering the meth trade, as traffickers get increasingly skillful in the way they move their drugs.

“Producers in Thailand are also making the pills on the go in moving vehicles. It’s nearly impossible to intercept them all,” he said.

Insulated from crackdowns by remote Golden Triangle locations, alliances with powerful armed groups and easily corrupted officials, the crime organizations of Southeast Asia show no sign of slowing down.

Security experts warn that cyber scams with bases in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia have made new fortunes for the crime lords and are becoming increasingly advanced with artificial intelligence and the reach of the internet.

“We are only at the beginning of a technology-driven revolution of the criminal ecosystem here, with implications for people far beyond this region,” Hofmann said.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — When Ngarauru Mako told her family she was calling off Christmas festivities in favor of celebrating Matariki, the Māori new year holiday that’s experiencing a renaissance in New Zealand, her children didn’t believe her.

“We grew up with Christmas because it was just what you did, but I realized it wasn’t my thing,” said Mako, who is Māori, a member of New Zealand’s Indigenous people. “I just decided myself to cancel Christmas, be the Grinch, and take on Matariki.”

Now in its third year as a nationwide public holiday in New Zealand, Matariki marks the lunar new year by the rise of the star cluster known in the Northern Hemisphere as the Pleiades. The holiday is seeing a surge in popularity, even as political debates about race in New Zealand have grown more divisive. Accompanying the holiday’s rise is a tension between those embracing Indigenous language and culture, and a vocal minority who wish to see less of it.

“For much of our past, since the arrival of settlers to this land, mostly out of Great Britain, we’ve really looked to mimic and build our identity off Great Britain,” said Rangi Mātāmua, professor of Mātauranga Māori -– Māori knowledge — at Massey University and an adviser to the government on Matariki.

“But I think as we’ve moved a number of generations on, Aotearoa New Zealand is starting to come of age in terms of our understanding of our identity,” he added, using both the Māori and English names for the country.

When New Zealand established the national day in 2022, it became the first nation in the world to recognize an Indigenous-minority holiday, scholars including Mātāmua believe. But many did not know what it was. Even so, 51% of people did something to mark the day, official figures show, and that number grew to 60% in 2023. Matariki falls on a different midwinter date each year based on the Māori lunar calendar; in 2024 it was officially celebrated June 28.

 

A 700-year-old tradition that fell out of observance in modern times — even among the 1 million Māori who make up New Zealand’s population of 5 million -– the fortunes of Matariki changed over the past few decades, as Māori language, culture and traditions saw a passionate resurgence.

“Māori culture has been oppressed for a long, long time. We lost our reo — our language — nearly, we nearly lost our identity,” said Poropiti Rangitaawa, a musician who performed Māori songs this month at a family Matariki celebration outside of Wellington, the capital city. “But with the hope of our people, our old people, our ancestors, they have brought it up and now it’s really strong.”

The carnival day at Wainuiomata where Rangitaawa played was one of many events New Zealanders of all ethnicities attended to mark Matariki. Some attended predawn ceremonies where steam from food is released to “feed the stars” and lists of names are read remembering the dead and those born since the last celebration.

Dotted around Wellington were remembrance spots — in the back room of a church, in a garden -– where visitors displayed notes to those they had lost: a dad, an aunt, a cat.

“It’s only just now that I’m realizing Matariki is about the stars, and I love the fact that they’ve got a star for the ones we’ve lost in the year,” said Casey Wick, attending a celebration with her family.

For many, a growing knowledge of the holiday has come through their children, which is typical of New Zealand’s Indigenous movement. Protests in the 1970s seeking recognition of the language gave rise to Māori language pre-schools whose first generation of graduates are fluent speakers.

Every elementary school in New Zealand now recognizes Matariki, and many this month hosted shared meals for families to celebrate. Children come home singing the names of the nine Matariki stars to the tune of the Macarena.

“I learn more from her about Matariki than I could ever give to her,” said Liana Childs, whose daughter Akaylia, 9, recited the stars of the cluster perfectly. The family is not Māori, Childs said, but they studied the Māori seasons, which guide the planting of crops and when to hunt.

“I think it’s just brought us closer together as a family,” she said.

The political climate for Māori language and culture, however, is complicated.

Words in the language are now commonplace in conversations, but Māori has its detractors, too. Matariki was established as a national day under New Zealand’s previous center-left government, which urged the country to embrace Māori culture. The government, however, was often decried for doing little to address woeful economic, health and justice issues for Māori that became entrenched after New Zealand was colonized in the 19th century.

A change of government last October meant a new era for Matariki. The party leading the current center-right coalition supports the day, but one of its coalition partners does not. The government has also pledged to scrap some policies recognizing Māori that were passed by its predecessors, getting rid of a Māori health agency that prioritized Indigenous New Zealanders, who die younger than people of non-Maori descent; reversing a movement to grant Māori names to government agencies, some of which have already reverted to their English titles; and halting plans for shared management of public utilities with Māori tribes.

One of the governing parties has provoked a fresh debate about New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi -– signed between Māori tribes and the British Crown in 1840 -– with the suggestion that modern interpretations have given Māori too many rights. The rumblings about a revisited treaty have prompted protest marches.

“Governments will come and governments will go,” said Mātāmua, the professor. “Matariki existed before government, and it will continue to exist after the current government.”

Māori language and culture almost died out when earlier politicians opposed their expression, Mātāmua said, but in a nation where many are now enthusiastic about it, any government trying to curtail the celebration would learn “that perhaps trying to put this genie back in the bottle would be very, very difficult.”

At the Matariki celebration in Wainuiomata, Tash Simpson stood with friends at a stall that fused Māori and Kenyan crafts.

“We’re stronger now. Our people are more knowledgeable now,” she said of political threats to Māori. “But now we know what’s coming and we’re ready.”
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VIENTIANE, LAOS — As Beijing weaves its web of roads and railways through Southeast Asia, a massive Chinese-financed infrastructure project in Laos is quietly reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape.

The $6 billion China-Laos railway, which opened in December 2021 and will soon provide a direct route from Kunming, China, to the Gulf of Thailand through connections with previously existing rail lines in those countries, stands as a symbol of Beijing’s ambitious regional expansion strategy.

Initially planned with 32 stations, the railway currently boasts 10 passenger stations and 10 freight stations, with further expansion in progress.

The railway is managed by the Laos-China Railway Company, a joint venture in Vientiane. Laos holds a 30% stake through the Lao National Railway State Enterprise, with Chinese state-owned enterprises, led by China State Railway Group Company Ltd., covering the remainder. Funding includes a 60% loan from Eximbank of China and 40% equity investment from each nation.

Laos’ $1.79 billion share includes $730 million in equity and $1.06 billion in debt, supplemented by a $480 million Eximbank of China loan and $250 million from the state budget.

While the project promises economic growth for Laos, it is also part of China’s strategic Belt and Road Initiative aimed at extending the country’s influence.

Daniele Carminati, a visiting lecturer at Bangkok’s Mahidol University International College, acknowledged the potential economic benefits of increased Chinese investment in Laos. He said that while there are opportunities for local employment and business growth near railway stations, there is also the risk of deepening dependence on China.

“China will still have a major role in the operations of the railways, and this can result in political influence, even if passively. Laos could hardly take a tough stance with China because there is a lot to lose,” he told VOA by email.

Given Laos’ location bordering China, a tough stance would be unlikely anyway, he said.

“It is sensible for Laos to ‘accept its status’ and try to reap the benefits accordingly,” he said.

The influx of Chinese investment may bring short-term gains, but the long-term consequences could entrench Laos in a cycle of debt and subservience.

Grace Stanhope, a research associate in the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre told VOA, “The railway was intended to increase economic activity and facilitate cross-border exports and tourism for Laos. However, reports indicate that most of the exports on the railway to China are from Chinese companies operating in Laos, rather than Laos-owned businesses.”

According to Laos-China Railway Company figures, the Laos-China Railway recorded over 10,000 trains and 8.7 million passengers from January to May, a 17.5% increase over last year.

Looking ahead, Laos and Thailand are preparing to initiate a trial run of a Vientiane-Bangkok railway link on July 13-14, with plans for it to become the first rail link between Thailand and China.

Influence at the local level

Despite regulations requiring payments in Lao kip, railway stations display prices in both kip and Chinese yuan. Vendors often accept yuan, given the high number of Chinese tourists and business travelers, said Phetsamone ‘Mone’ Vilaysack, a cashier at a small shop in the Vientiane train station.

“The train and its operation are mostly run by Chinese companies, it makes sense that we should allow them to pay in yuan,” Mone told VOA.

A train hostess, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was unaware of the currency law but was instructed by her employer to ask for payments in kip first but accept yuan.

“When customers pay, I always tell them the price in kip first. If they say they have only yuan, I allow them to use it,” she said.

She said that since she started working for the Laos-China Railway in early 2022, there has been a massive increase in Chinese visitors.

“There are so many businessmen from China traveling by train now. I can recognize some of them. I guess they must have some big businesses in Vientiane or Bokeo,” she said. “When I see them, I know they would pay in yuan.”

Bokeo is the one of the most controversial areas in the region. It is home to the biggest Chinese-run special economic zone in Laos and is well known as a drug trafficking center with allegations of human trafficking, forced labor, prostitution, and illegal scam rings and gambling.

Jeuan, who prefers to be known by his nickname, has operated a restaurant in the Bokeo zone since 2021 but lives with his family in China, close to Laos’ northernmost border.

“I often use the train to cross to Laos. It’s fast and cheap. It’s not necessary for us [his family] to move to Laos. I can just invest here,” he told VOA at the Vientiane station while waiting for his train to Bokeo.

Jeuan said he travels to Bokeo and Vientiane up to three times a month, personally handling business paperwork with local authorities.

“I can consider investing in more businesses in Bokeo, or even Thailand, if the train will go there in the future,” he said.

Regional influence, debt concerns

Meanwhile, concerns over the railway’s financial implications loom large. Financed largely through Chinese loans, the project has raised apprehensions about Laos’ mounting debt to China, estimated to be over half of Laos’ external debt, exceeding 100% of its gross domestic product, according to Stanhope.

Critics also say such projects could spur increasing alignment of Lao economic and political decisions with Chinese interests and that the project increases Beijing’s leverage over Lao infrastructure and resources, potentially compromising Laos’ sovereignty.

“The main challenges, beyond technical ones, would be for China to build a credible/persuasive narrative ensuring they will not take advantage of their role while respecting the receiving countries’ sovereignty, aware that the United States and allies will keep warning the region of such risks,” Carminati wrote in his email.

The project is part of China’s vision for the Kunming–Singapore Railway, also known as the Pan-Asia Railway, a flagship BRI project in mainland Southeast Asia. The vision includes three routes linking Kunming to Singapore via Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia.

Carminati cited the potential geopolitical impact of extending the line all the way south to Malaysia and Singapore.

Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore would not stop defending their national interests, he wrote, “but it is hard to deny that … a softer stance is expected if these major infrastructure projects are to be completed, maintained, and ‘exploited’ in the long term.”
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Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia — Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene declared victory early Saturday in parliamentary elections, after a contest dominated by deepening public anger about corruption and the state of the economy. 

People across the vast, sparsely populated nation of 3.4 million, sandwiched between China and Russia, voted Friday to elect 126 members of the State Great Khural. 

With 100 percent of votes counted by machine, the prime minister told a press conference in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, a few hours after polls closed that his ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) had won a majority of seats. 

“According to the pre-results, the Mongolian People’s Party has 68 to 70 seats,” he said. 

The vote, he said, represented a “new page” in “democratic debate.” 

The votes were being counted by hand, and an official result was expected later Saturday. 

If the preliminary results hold, the MPP will see its overall share of parliamentary seats fall, from a supermajority of 79% in 2020 to about 54% in the new one. 

Results tallied by local media outlet Ikon based on official data also showed the MPP winning 68 seats, with the main opposition Democratic Party winning 42. 

The minor anti-corruption HUN party won eight, Ikon reported. 

Voter turnout was 69.3% nationally, a screen at the country’s Electoral Commission headquarters showed. 

Julian Dierkes, a professor at the University of British Columbia and an expert on Mongolian politics, wrote that “everything points to a reduced MPP majority with a surprisingly strong showing” by the Democratic Party. 

“The relatively strong turnout,” he said, also suggests “desire for some change.”

Deep frustration 

Analysts had expected the MPP to retain the majority it has enjoyed since 2016 and govern for another four years. 

They say the party can credit much of its success to a boom in coal mining that fueled double-digit growth and dramatically improved standards of living, as well as to a formidable party machine and a weak, fractured opposition. 

Yet there is deep public frustration over endemic corruption, as well as the high cost of living and lack of opportunities for young people who make up almost two-thirds of the population. 

There is also a widespread belief that the proceeds of the coal-mining boom are being hoarded by a wealthy elite – a view that has sparked frequent protests. 

Broad spectrum 

The streets of Ulaanbaatar, home to almost half of Mongolia’s population, have been decked out this week with colorful campaign posters touting candidates from across the political spectrum, from populist businessmen to nationalists, environmentalists and socialists. 

Parties are required by law to ensure that 30% of candidates are women in a country where politics is dominated by men. 

Preliminary results Saturday suggested that 25% of seats in the new parliament would be held by women, up from 17% in 2020. 

The MPP is the successor to the communist party that ruled Mongolia with an iron grip for almost 70 years.  

It remains popular, particularly among rural, older voters, and commands a sprawling, nationwide campaign apparatus.
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new york — The United States and its allies warned Friday that expanding military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is dangerous, illegal and a growing threat to the wider international community.

“Last week, Russian and DPRK leaders signed a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,’ paving the way for further deepening their military cooperation,” Robert Wood, U.S. deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters, surrounded by representatives of nearly 50 like-minded countries.

“We are deeply concerned about the security implications of the advancement of this cooperation for Europe, the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”

DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Wood spoke ahead of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by the United States, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea to discuss North Korea’s transfer of arms and munitions to Russia, which are helping drive the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine. Such transfers would violate a U.N. arms embargo on North Korea.

“Before February 2022, it was hard to imagine that the war in Ukraine would pose such a direct threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean Ambassador Joonkook Hwang told council members. “But now we are facing a new reality.”

He said South Korea’s national defense ministry has assessed that since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in Russia in September, Pyongyang has shipped at least 10,000 containers to Russia that can hold a total of as many as 5 million artillery shells. His government has also determined that 122-millimeter artillery shells made in North Korea were included in the weapons Russia has used against Ukraine.

In return for the weapons, North Korea is seeking trade and military assistance from Russia, which would violate U.N. sanctions. It is also benefiting from Russia’s political protection in the Security Council.

“All these developments can bring about a shift in the global security landscape, and the potential long-term effects are dangerously uncertain,” Hwang said, adding that Seoul would “resolutely respond” to any threats to its security in a “prudent and measured” way.

U.N. sanctions experts detailed prohibited transfers of military equipment and munitions from North Korea to Russia in a report in February — which Moscow denied. Russia then used its Security Council veto to shut down the 14-year-old monitoring panel in April.

Russia’s envoy again dismissed accusations it is getting weapons from North Korea at Friday’s meeting.

“This is completely false,” Vassily Nebenzia told the council, adding that the two countries’ cooperation “is exclusively constructive and legitimate in nature.”

Nebenzia dismissed the panel of experts’ findings as controlled and directed by the West.

“The panel of experts have been following those orders given them and turning in the direction they were told to turn,” he said.

North Korea’s envoy defended Pyongyang and Moscow’s treaty, saying relations between the two countries “are completely peace-loving and defensive in nature.”

“Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to be concerned about development of their bilateral relations, unless they have intention to undertake a military invasion of the DPRK and Russian Federation,” Ambassador Song Kim said.

China, which has traditionally been North Korea’s closest ally, expressed concern about heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“China calls on parties concerned to be rational and pragmatic and to find joint efforts to find a solution,” Deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang said.

Washington’s envoy urged Beijing to use its influence with both Pyongyang and Moscow to persuade them to cease their “increasingly dangerous cooperation.”

“So I appeal to my Chinese colleague to understand that if indeed the situation on the Korean Peninsula continues on the trajectory it’s going, the United States and its allies will have to take steps to defend their security,” Wood said.
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