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AustraliaThe “Asian El Chapo” has been extradited
Arrested last year in the Netherlands, drug lord Tse Chi Lop will have to answer for his crimes in Australia.
Tse Chi Lop, 59, is suspected of being the leader of the huge “Sam Gor” cartel.
The suspected Asian drug lord and one of the world’s most wanted men has been extradited to Australia and arrested on charges of drug trafficking, Australian police said on Thursday.
Tse Chi Lop, 59, is suspected of being the leader of the huge Asian cartel known as “Sam Gor”, a major producer and supplier of methamphetamines worldwide. This Canadian citizen of Chinese origin is compared to Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
He is due to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday to answer the charge of “conspiring to traffic in commercial quantities of controlled drugs”, following being extradited from the Netherlands. If found guilty, he faces life in prison. Australian police hailed “one of the most dramatic arrests in the country’s history”.
“Sam Gor” would launder billions from drugs, particularly through casinos, hotels and real estate companies in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia.
“A very complex investigation”
Tse Chi Lop was arrested in January 2021 at Schiphol International Airport near Amsterdam following a decade of stalking, and was the subject of an Interpol red notice. Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the arrest came following ‘a very complex investigation’. “By their very nature, these high-ranking figures within the (crime) syndicates obviously deliberately stay away from business transactions”, hence the importance of this arrest and the length of the hunt, a- she explained.
Australian police say the charges relate to a drug smuggling operation from Melbourne to Sydney in 2012-2013. At the time, a police raid led to the arrest of 27 people and the recovery of 20 kilos of methamphetamine, with a current market value of around 3 million dollars (2.82 million euros). A second man was also arrested following being extradited from Thailand.
“The hard work of the investigators and the international network (of the Australian Federal Police) made it possible to charge these alleged offenders and bring them face to face with the Australian justice,” highlighted Ms. Barrett.
(AFP)