• Burmese
Monday, May 12, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
31 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

US Drug and Arms Arrests Smear Myanmar Ethnic Armed Organization

Bertil Lintner by Bertil Lintner
May 5, 2022
in Burma, Guest Column, News, Opinion
Reading Time: 7 mins read
0 0
A A
US Drug and Arms Arrests Smear Myanmar Ethnic Armed Organization

Feature: KNU soldiers parade for the 70th anniversary of the Karen revolution at their base on the Thai-Myanmar border in 2019.

11.3k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

At a first glance, it seemed like a major achievement by a group of United States crime fighters. An undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker had managed to secure evidence leading to the arrest of a leader of a Yakuza organized crime gang, as well as of three Thais of whom two have military backgrounds, over a plot to use drugs as payment for sophisticated US-made weaponry. 

According to documents supplied by the DEA to a court in New York on January 19 and made public in April, three ethnic armies in Myanmar — the Karen National Union (KNU), the Shan State Army (SSA) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) — needed the weapons, including “ten FIM-92J Stinger surface-to-air-missiles”, automatic rifles and mortars for their fight against the Myanmar junta. The payment for the whole shipment would be 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin or US$40 million, presumably in cash or by bank transfer. The court document also states that “the buyers would build an airstrip to receive delivery of the weapons by cargo plane.”

But to anyone familiar with the Golden Triangle drug trade, this sounds a highly unlikely story. The KNU has for more than a year been subjected to aerial attacks launched by the Myanmar Air Force, and so would need such MANPADS, or man-portable defense systems, but the group would not be able to produce any drugs to pay for them because it has never been involved in the narcotics trade, nor would it have US$40 million in its coffers. 

RelatedPosts

Breaking the 60-Year Political Cycle in Myanmar

Breaking the 60-Year Political Cycle in Myanmar

May 12, 2025
210
KNU Hails Seizure of Myanmar Junta Base on Thai Border

KNU Hails Seizure of Myanmar Junta Base on Thai Border

May 9, 2025
1.3k
Myanmar Junta Boss’s Moscow Visits Deepens Russia Ties

Myanmar Junta Boss’s Moscow Visits Deepens Russia Ties

May 9, 2025
564

The SSA, which here is the Shan State Army-South, the armed wing of the Thai-border based Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) [the rival SSA-North is based in northern Shan State and is the armed wing of the Shan State Progress Party], on October 15, 2015 became one of the signatories of what the Myanmar authorities call the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). Thus, it is not engaged in any war with the Myanmar military. 

The court document goes on to state that the UWSA needs the weapons because they are “fighting the government of Myanmar” but, as anyone following events in the country’s frontier areas knows, that is utterly incorrect. The UWSA has not signed the NCA but it has had an informal ceasefire agreement with Myanmar’s central authorities since 1989. The Wa have a formidable armed force, probably as many as 20,000 or 30,000 men, but the only battles the UWSA has fought since 1989 are with the RCSS and its predecessor, the Möng Tai Army of the late druglord Khun Sa. And neither of those groups has or has had any aircraft that would have to be shot down. Although the UWSA is not fighting the Myanmar army, it keeps a vast arsenal of weapons to deter any attempt by central authorities to move into its areas along the Myanmar-China border — and that includes a significant number of Chinese-made FN-6 MANPADS. In other words, there is no reason why the Wa would want to buy expensive and more-difficult-to-use American Stingers.

Then there is the question of the airfield “the buyers” were supposed to build for the cargo plane that was going to deliver the goods to them. How on earth would that work? And how would any cargo plane loaded with heavy weapons be able to fly undetected through Thai airspace — which it would have to — then land at some clearing in the jungle and take off again? That detail alone lends credence to the suggestion by local sources in the area that this is nothing more than a cock-and-bull story. A closer look at the names mentioned in the court document also reinforces that conclusion. 

Takeshi Ebisawa handling a rocket launcher at a meeting with undercover agents in February 2021. / Department of Justice

The alleged “leader of the Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate,” who was going to supply the weapons is identified as Takeshi Ebisawa and the document even has a picture of him showing one of the MANPADS at a meeting with the undercover DEA agent. But Yakuza is the common name for a wide range of minor, middle-sized and larger Japanese crime syndicates and the name of this particular group is not mentioned anywhere in the submission to the court. Regardless of the size of the group, the leader himself would in any way not be involved in such deals; that is something his underlings would do in order to give their boss plausible deniability if anyone is caught.

The question of the actual identities of the three Thai middlemen is also a mystery. One of them, Suksan “Bobby” Jullanan, is referred to as “a Thai air force general.” But the Royal Thai Air Force does not have any generals. The highest rank is that of Air Chief Marshal followed by an Air Marshal, an Air Vice Marshal and so on. The second Thai defendant, Sompak Rukrasaranee, is supposed to be “a retired Thai military officer.” But no former rank or name of the regiment he once, allegedly, belonged to are mentioned in the documents. The third, Somphop Singhasiri is identified only as “a Thai national.” And then there is a “CC-1”, or Co-Conspirator 1, who is not named but is described as “the chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State.” That, of course, is Yawd Serk, who is not an underground figure or a fugitive from justice. He has taken part in several peace talks with the Myanmar military and traveled freely to and from Yangon as well as Naypyitaw.

Curiously, a fourth prospective buyer is also named in the documents: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that was completely crushed by the Sri Lankan army in 2009. But the DEA seems to believe that the LTTE “continues to attract international financial support.” Apparently, Ebisawa had some contacts with an unnamed former LTTE official who — it is unclear — is either in prison in India or has been released due to efforts of the alleged Yakuza leader.

In the end, all that the DEA appears to have ended up with is the arrest of a talkative Japanese fraudster— and three Thai conmen who no one inside Myanmar seems to have heard of. That, in turn, raises the question whether pure incompetence and ignorance of the situation of the ground led to those arrests, of if there could be a more sinister agenda behind this remarkably implausible story. Could it even be the outcome of an interdepartmental feud within the US administration? That is an issue that has troubled Myanmar policymakers in Washington for decades. The US State Department has always been consistent in its support for Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces and opposition to autocratic, military rule. The DEA’s agents, on the other hand, have been much more willing to cooperate with the Myanmar military because they believe they are on the same side in the war on drugs — and despite that fact that much of the drug trade is carried out by local, government-recognized militias.

After the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and the massacres of demonstrators in Yangon and cities and towns all over the country, the then US ambassador Burton Levin was firm in his condemnation of the then junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), and ordered his staff to cease regular meetings with the military authorities. The first to ignore those directives was DEA agent Gregory Korniloff, who was told to leave Yangon in December 1988 after making an unsuccessful attempt to arrange an unauthorized meeting with officials of the Myanmar military’s intelligence service. At the time, Korniloff was said to be eager to resume normal ties with the military leadership in Yangon, which he claimed had made significant headway in fighting the narcotics trade. 

The controversy reached new heights in March 1991, when it was discovered that another Yangon-based DEA officer, Angelo Saladino, had authored a secret memorandum addressed to Myanmar’s powerful and ruthless intelligence chief, Major General Khin Nyunt. Dated March 15, 1991, the letter listed in detail the various ways that the Myanmar military might try to impress the US Government as well as United Nations agencies. It also provided specific suggestions on ways to “deprive many of Myanmar’s most vocal critics of some of their shopworn, yet effective weapons in the campaign to discredit [Myanmar’s] narcotics program.” Finally, Saladino recommended several options to the junta for silencing “its most biased critics.”

It took some time before Washington discovered the memorandum. When noises were made, Saladino reportedly flew back to the DEA’s headquarters in the US at his own expense. He managed to convince his superiors that he had not, after all, sent the memorandum to Khin Nyunt. A compromise was reached with the State Department: Saladino had his tour of duty in Myanmar officially curtailed but was allowed to serve out his term which only had a few more months to run.

It is too early to say whether history is repeating itself, but by dragging the KNU into this conundrum, the DEA is discrediting an ethnic group which is serving as host for hundreds of pro-democracy activists who, since last year’s February 1 coup, have sought refuge in the areas near the Thai border that the KNU controls. Many are involved in armed struggle, while others are running news and blog sites on the internet and getting support from the US government and private donors. How, and if, this court case will affect that support remains to be seen. But the DEA, eager to resume contacts with Myanmar’s military authorities, has done the pro-democracy movement a huge disservice — and on dubious grounds which will not have any impact on the flow of narcotics out of Southeast Asia. 

Entrapment is illegal in most countries [but not the US] because law enforcement officers are supposed to fight crime, not encourage easily-duped individuals to commit ones. And all that the DEA has been able to produce when it comes to drugs is a photograph allegedly sent by Signal to or from Singhasiri (spelt Sanghasiri on the screengrab) showing a bag of Double UO Globe heroin which could have been taken anytime and even downloaded from the internet.

You may also like these stories:

Myanmar’s Revolution Must Succeed: NUG Humanitarian Minister

Regime Forces Loot and Torch Over 200 Houses in Upper Myanmar

Myanmar Junta Officially Endorses Militias to Attack Anti-Regime Civilians

Your Thoughts …
Tags: CoupDEADrug Enforcement AdministrationjuntaKaren National UnionMan-portable defense systemMANPADSMyanmar MilitaryRCSSRestoration Council of Shan StateShan State ArmySSAUnited StatesUnited Wa State ArmyUWSA
Bertil Lintner

Bertil Lintner

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant who has been writing about Asia for nearly four decades.

Similar Picks:

Enter the Dragon, Exit the Junta: Myanmar’s Brotherhood Alliance makes Chinese New Year Vow
Burma

Enter the Dragon, Exit the Junta: Myanmar’s Brotherhood Alliance makes Chinese New Year Vow

by The Irrawaddy
February 12, 2024
44.4k

Ethnic armed grouping says it will continue Operation 1027 offensive until goal of ousting the junta is achieved. 

Read moreDetails
Drone Attack at Myanmar-China Border Gate Causes Over $14m in Losses
Business

Drone Attack at Myanmar-China Border Gate Causes Over $14m in Losses

by The Irrawaddy
November 27, 2023
38.3k

Jin San Jiao is latest northern Shan State trade hub in crosshairs of ethnic Brotherhood Alliance.

Read moreDetails
Arakan Army Captures Myanmar Junta Brigade General in Chin State Rout: Report
Burma

Arakan Army Captures Myanmar Junta Brigade General in Chin State Rout: Report

by The Irrawaddy
January 15, 2024
36.3k

Rakhine-based armed group has reportedly detained the chief of 19th Military Operations Command after seizing his base in Paletwa Township.

Read moreDetails
Myanmar Junta Arrests Thai Condo Buyers, Realtors as Currency Crashes
Business

Myanmar Junta Arrests Thai Condo Buyers, Realtors as Currency Crashes

by The Irrawaddy
June 4, 2024
27.6k

Monday’s arrests follow reports that Myanmar has become one of Thailand’s most lucrative markets for selling condos since the 2021...

Read moreDetails
Tensions High on Myanmar Border as Thai Troops Demand UWSA Withdrawal
Burma

Tensions High on Myanmar Border as Thai Troops Demand UWSA Withdrawal

by The Irrawaddy
November 26, 2024
27.3k

A long-sweltering border dispute is flaring up again as the United Wa State Army refuses to yield to Thai demands...

Read moreDetails
China-Backed Illegal Rare Earth Mining Surging in Northern Myanmar
Burma

China-Backed Illegal Rare Earth Mining Surging in Northern Myanmar

by Yan Naing
July 15, 2022
34.7k

A Myanmar military-backed militia in Kachin State is protecting Chinese-run mines that produce coveted rare earth minerals used in hi-tech...

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Myanmar Junta Burn Over 1

Myanmar Junta Burn Over 1,300 Houses in Four Days in Northwest

Myanmar’s Civilian Government Passes Police Law for its Controlled Areas

Myanmar’s Civilian Government Passes Police Law for its Controlled Areas

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

Fury Over China’s Support for Myanmar Junta Eclipses Quake Aid Gratitude 

Fury Over China’s Support for Myanmar Junta Eclipses Quake Aid Gratitude 

5 days ago
1.2k
Inside the Myanmar Junta’s Post-Earthquake Theater of Control

Inside the Myanmar Junta’s Post-Earthquake Theater of Control

5 days ago
983

Most Read

  • Myanmar Junta Chief Meets China’s Xi for First Time: State Media

    Myanmar Junta Chief Meets China’s Xi for First Time: State Media

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • A Troubling Message from China’s Ambassador to Myanmar

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • KNU Hails Seizure of Myanmar Junta Base on Thai Border

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Heavy Casualties as Myanmar Junta Pushes to Reclaim Mandalay Gold Hub  

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta ‘Seizes Eight TNLA Positions’

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.