SPECIAL INVESTIGATION Myanmar’s jungle meth

Customs seizures climb as gangs crank production.

Narco-guerrillas and ruthless gangs in the jungles of Myanmar are cranking out high-purity crystal methamphetamine at unprecedented levels, which drug experts say is appearing on New Zealand streets.

Safe in mountainous forests, Myanmar authorities turning a blind eye, and often aided by state-backed militias, the meth factories employing world-class chemists are fuelling a US$40 billion ($56.9b) regional drug economy.

Record billion-dollar busts in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand in recent months — with tonnes bound for wider distribution by organised crime supply networks — has the United Nations ramping up political pressure on troubled Myanmar, also called Burma, and other governments of the so-called Golden Triangle region, to help crack down on the rampant drug trade. “What we see inside Myanmar right now is massive amounts of really highpurity crystal meth being produced,” says Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and the Pacific regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“This supply push or oversupply is being connected to high demand across the region, including in places like Australia and New Zealand, which have some of the highest crystal meth prices per kilo in the world.” The last three years have seen a “massive surge” in crystal meth production in northern Myanmar, especially from outside gangs moving into the territory controlled by ethnic armed groups, says Douglas, the veteran Bangkok-based UN head of office.

Methamphetamine, widely known as P in New Zealand, is typically produced using pseudoephedrine and ephedrine — everyday cough and cold remedy ingredients.

Huge quantities of precursor chemicals are smuggled into Myanmar, mostly from China and northeast India, the Herald on Sunday has been told.

The finished product is trafficked across the country’s porous borders before being shifted through Southeast Asian organised crime networks.

International drug smuggling experts say the drugs are then packaged for regional distribution, hooking up with gangs like the Head Hunters and Comanchero, who then cut up the meth — arriving in New Zealand in crystal, powder or liquid form, says the Customs Service.

It’s understood the gangs are keen to get into smuggling the product themselves, cutting out the middleman, and ramping up profit.

Last year, Customs seized a record 417.8kg of methamphetamine, the Herald on

Sunday can reveal.

That’s a staggering 2000 per cent jump in the amount of meth stopped over the past five years.

Customs bosses are also seeing increasing efforts to create a cocaine and ecstasy underworld Downunder, but meth “continues to be New Zealand’s drug of choice”, according to Customs and police.

Not too long ago, most of it was coming from North Asia, predominantly China. Now, agencies are well aware Myanmar’s drug makers are fuelling the intercontinental market in huge quantities.

“We know a significant amount of drugs come to Australia and New Zealand from that region,” confirms Jamie Bamford, Customs’ group manager for intelligence, investigations and enforcement.

“Our adversaries are pretty clever, pretty responsive, and they will chop and change the way they send it and