Canadian called ‘Asia’s El Chapo’ arrested
Former Toronto resident alleged drug syndicate kingpin
A former Toronto resident and alleged drug kingpin dubbed “Asia’s El Chapo” faces extradition to Australia after he was arrested in the Netherlands while trying to fly to Canada.
Tse Chi Lop, 57, a Chinese-born Canadian national and the purported leader of a multi-billion-dollar drug syndicate, was arrested without incident on Friday at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, at the request of Australian authorities.
His arrest was big news in Australia, with the Sydney Morning Herald calling it “a stunning coup for the Australian Federal Police.”
“Tse is the most important alleged drug importer to be nabbed by the federal police in two decades, with police intelligence sources estimating his syndicate is allegedly responsible for up to 70 per cent of all narcotics entering Australia,” the Herald reported.
No details of his arrest were available, including his destination in Canada. He often travelled by private jet.
According to international law enforcement authorities, Tse sits atop a multi-billiondollar organization variously called Sam Gor, or The Company and the Grandfather Syndicate.
He is allegedly on a level with Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, the now imprisoned head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, Jeremy Douglas of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific told the Star in an earlier interview.
Douglas said Tse’s organization has allegedly thrived and expanded during the pandemic because it had stockpiles of chemicals necessary to manufacture synthetic drugs.
The organization employs top-notch chemists who allegedly manufacture illegal synthetic drugs like fentanyl, methamphetamine, ecstasy and ketamine around the world. The organization has been able to keep prices down and flood markets during the pandemic, authorities say.
They allege Sam Gor factories are based in areas with deep governance problems like the Golden Triangle, centred on the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, and protected by private militias.
Tse — whose aliases include Tse Chi Lap, Brother No. 3, Sam Gor, T1, Ah Lap, Dennis and Xie Zii — has maintained an extremely low profile. Sam Gor is Cantonese for one of Tse’s nicknames, “Brother No. 3.”
Tse was born in Guangzhou in 1963 and immigrated in 1988 to Toronto, where he was part of a criminal group known as the Big Circle Boys.
Tse was imprisoned in the U.S. from 1997 to 2006 for heroin trafficking after being arrested with some senior members of the Montreal-based Rizzuto Mafia family, which had representatives in the GTA.
Among those convicted with Tse were Emanuel Raguso, an inlaw of Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto, who died in 2013, and Salvatore (Sam) Nicolucci, a close Rizzuto associate who also served prison time for cocaine trafficking.
Tse spent most of his prison time in Elkton, Ohio, and then returned to Canada. He was back in Hong Kong by 2011.