A suspected drug lord, known as ‘Asia’s El Chapo’, has been arrested in Amsterdam on suspicion of operating a million-dollar drug business, authorities said.
Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian citizen, was detained at Schiphol Airport without incident at the request of Australian police, which led to an international investigation into his cartel, Dutch police spokesman Thomas Aling said on Saturday.
“He was already on the most coveted list and he was detained based on information we received,” Aling said.
Authorities said Tse, 57, is the leader of Sam Gor Syndicate, which reportedly dominates drug trafficking in Asia and the Pacific every year.
Tse, a former prisoner who previously lived in Toronto, allegedly managed the massive empire while living in Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Authorities say the cartel smuggled very powerful methods to more than a dozen countries, in addition to heroin and MDMA trafficking.
The syndicate has been “connected to or directly involved in at least 13 cases” of drug trafficking since January 2015, according to court documents.
Jeremy Douglas, regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), had earlier warned that Tse was just as big a threat as other notorious drug lords.
“Tse Chi Lop is in the league of El Chapo or maybe Pablo Escobar,” he told Reuters.
The UNODC estimates that Tse’s group pocketed as much as $ 17 billion in 2018.
Tse is expected to be extradited after appearing before a judge, Dutch police said.
With Post threads