The Golden Triangle is a large, mountainous region of approximately in northeastern Myanmar, Northern Thailand and northern Laos, centered on the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers.
The Golden Triangle has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when opium production in Afghanistan (located in the Golden Crescent) increased. Myanmar was the world's second-largest source of opium after Afghanistan up to 2022, producing some 25% of the world's opium, forming part of the Golden Triangle. While opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar had declined year-on-year since 2015, the cultivation area increased by 33% totalling alongside an 88% increase in yield potential to in 2022 according to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar Opium Survey 2022. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has also warned that opium production in Myanmar may rise again if the economic crunch brought on by COVID-19 and the country's 2021 Myanmar coup d'état persists, with significant public health and security consequences for much of Asia.
In 2023, Myanmar became the world's largest producer of opium after an estimated of the drug was produced, according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, while a crackdown by the Taliban reduced opium production by approximately 95% to in Afghanistan for the same year.
Today, the Thai side of the river confluence, Sop Ruak, has become a tourist attraction, with the House of Opium Museum, a Hall of Opium, a Golden Triangle Park, and no opium cultivation.
Term The name "Golden Triangle" was coined by Marshall Green, a U.S. State Department official, in 1971 in a press conference on the opium trade.
Geography The following districts make up the approximate geographical area of the Golden Triangle:
Myanmar Thailand Laos Shan State Chiang Mai Luang Namtha Chiang Rai Bokèo Mae Hong Son Luang Prabang Phayao Oudomxay Lampang Phongsaly Lamphun Houaphan Nan Xiangkhoang Phrae
Origin
In the late 1940s, as the Chinese Communist Party gained power, it ordered ten million addicts into compulsory treatment, had dealers executed, and opium-producing regions planted with new crops. Consequently, opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the Golden Triangle region. Small-scale opium production in Myanmar dated back to the Konbaung dynasty in 1750, chiefly for the consumption of foreigners.
The Chinese troops of the Kuomintang in Burma (KMT) were in effect the forebears of the private narcotic armies operating in the Golden Triangle. In 1949, thousands of the defeated Kuomintang troops crossed over the border from Yunnan Province into Burma, a nation with a weak government, and the Kuomintang seized control of the border regions of Burma. Almost all of the KMT opium was sent south to Thailand. The KMT-controlled territories made up Burma's major opium-producing region, and the shift in KMT policy allowed them to expand their control over the region's opium trade. Furthermore, Communist China's eradication of illicit opium cultivation in Yunnan by the early 1950s effectively handed the opium monopoly to the KMT army in the Shan State. The main consumers of the drug were the local ethnic Chinese and those across the border in Yunnan and the rest of Southeast Asia. They coerced the local villagers for recruits, food and money, and exacted a heavy tax on the opium farmers. That forced the farmers to increase their production to make ends meet. One American missionary to the Lahu people of Kengtung State testified that the KMT tortured the Lahu for failing to comply with their regulations.
Annual production increased 20 times, from 30 tons at the time of Burmese independence to in the mid-1950s.
History of heroin production
Myanmar is the world's largest producer of illicit opium, and has been a significant cog in the transnational drug trade since World War II. According to the UNODC it was estimated that in 2005 opium was cultivated in an area of in Myanmar. Opium and heroin base produced in northeastern Myanmar are transported by horse and donkey caravans to refineries along the Thailand–Burma border for conversion to heroin and heroin base. Most of the finished products are shipped across the border into various towns in North Thailand and down to Bangkok for further distribution to international markets.
The surrender of drug lord Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army in January 1996 was hailed by Yangon as a major counter-narcotics success. Lack of government will and ability to take on major narcotrafficking groups and lack of serious commitment against money laundering continues to hinder the overall anti-drug effort. Most of the tribespeople growing the opium poppy in Myanmar and in the Thai highlands are living below the poverty line.
In 1996, the United States Embassy in Rangoon released a "Country Commercial Guide", which states "Exports of opiates alone appear to be worth about as much as all legal exports." It goes on to say that investments in infrastructure and hotels are coming from major opiate-growing and opiate-exporting organizations and from those with close ties to these organizations.
A four-year investigation concluded that Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) was "the main channel for laundering the revenues of heroin produced and exported under the control of the Myanmar Army." In a business deal signed with the French oil giant Total S.A. in 1992, and later joined by Unocal, MOGE received a payment of $15 million. "Despite the fact that MOGE has no assets besides the limited installments of its foreign partners and makes no profit, and that the Myanmar state never had the capacity to allocate any currency credit to MOGE, the Singapore bank accounts of this company have seen the transfer of hundreds of millions of US dollars," reports François Casanier. According to a confidential MOGE file reviewed by the investigators, funds exceeding $60 million and originating from Myanmar's most renowned drug lord, Khun Sa, were channeled through the company. "Drug money is irrigating every economic activity in Myanmar, and big foreign partners are also seen by the State Law and Order Restoration Council as big shields for money laundering." Banks in Rangoon offered money laundering for a 40% commission. A United Nations report also cites corruption, poverty and a lack of government control as typical causes for impoverished farmers to engage in drug production.(February 2020). "Myanmar Opium Survey: cultivation, production and implications". UNODC.
Heroin processing in Southeast Asia
In 1992, the United States Department of Justice released a report detailing the typical process in which raw opium extracted from poppy plants is converted to morphine and then to heroin: An average Golden Triangle opium farmer will plant an area of (which would produce an average of 50,000 poppy plants) towards the end of the traditional wet season in September, which will allow harvesting to begin in February of the following year when the plant has matured. About two weeks after the flower petals fall from the now swollen pods, the farmer will use a tool with 3 or 4 blades to make deep diagonal incisions in each pod. This is done usually in the afternoon so that the white latex-like raw opium can ooze out onto the surface of the pod overnight. The farmer then scrapes the secretion off each pod with a curved tool and places it into a container. This is repeated up to six times until the pod is depleted and stops leaking fluid. Each pod will yield up to 80 mg of raw opium, with the field producing an average of between in total. The collected opium contains a high percentage of water, so the farmer will dry it in the hot sun for several days as its value increases due to less water weight per kilogram and then cut into standard sized blocks and wrap in plastic ready for sale to opium traders. To convert the opium to morphine, approximately 15 kilograms of raw opium is added to 30 gallons of water in a 55-gallon metal oil drum. A fire is lit under the drum and the solution is brought to the boil. After the opium has dissolved, non-soluble materials (such as plant twigs) float to the top and are scooped out. Calcium hydroxide is then added to convert the water insoluble morphine into water-soluble calcium morphenate, with any other alkaloids turning to sludge. After it has cooled, the contents are poured through a filter (like a burlap sack) into a pot and the collected filtered liquid is reheated to a simmer. Ammonium chloride is then added to adjust the pH level to 9, and the liquid is then left to cool for a couple of hours. The morphine base will gradually precipitate out of the solution and settle to the bottom of the pot. The liquid is then poured off through a filter and any chunks collected are added back into the pot. The remaining solids are then scraped out and left to dry in the sun until they turn into a coffee-colored powder, and what is left at the end of this process is a crude morphine base. This is then dissolved in hydrochloric acid, then boiled and filtered several times before being pressed into 1.3 kilogram bricks, which are then transported down from the highlands to heroin-processing laboratories. The morphine hydrochloride bricks are broken up into powder and then placed in a pot with acetic anhydride. The pot is then heated to a simmer for approximately two hours, during which the morphine and the anhydride become chemically bonded, creating an impure form of diacetylmorphine. Water is then added, along with charcoal, and after stirring, the liquid is strained out through a filter into a new container. Sodium carbonate is dissolved in hot water and then added slowly, which causes the heroin base to precipitate to the bottom of the container. This is then filtered out and dried in a steam bath for an hour. For every of morphine, approximately of crude heroin base can be extracted. This is then sent to a heroin-refining laboratory. Heroin Number 3 is created by mixing crude heroin base with hydrochloric acid, resulting in heroin hydrochloride, which is less than 40% pure and is typically consumed locally by smoking. Adulterants such as caffeine or quinine are added in a one to one ratio, and the wet paste is stirred to dryness over a steam bath. The resulting dry Heroin Number 3 will be in the form of dark brown coarse lumps, which are transferred into 1 kilogram plastic bags and then sold onto wholesale traffickers. Heroin Number 4, which is high quality (over 80% pure) and is typically exported abroad for consumption by intravenous injection, is created by mixing crude heroin base with water and acetic anhydride. After stirring, a small amount of chloroform is added. After about 20 minutes, impurities will sink to the bottom of the pot and a red greasy layer will float to the top, and the light yellow water layer in the middle is carefully poured off into a clean container. Charcoal is stirred in, and the liquid is then poured out through a filter into a new, clean pot, and this process is repeated until the liquid becomes clear. Sodium carbonate is dissolved in hot water and then added slowly, which causes the heroin base to precipitate to the bottom of the container. This is filtered out and dried in a steam bath for an hour. The resulting dry Heroin Number 4 will be in the form of a very white, fine powder, which is then pressed into 600 gram blocks (equivalent to a Chinese pound) and wrapped in plastic. These are then sold onto wholesale traffickers.
In the same year, the U.S. Department of Justice published a separate report with estimated prices for Southeast Asian heroin at various stages from point of production to final street sale: