Australian Federal Police (AFP) did not name the suspect but identified him as the the head of the notorious international drug syndicate known as “The Company” or “Sam Gor” that span across several countries in the Asia Pacific region.
Tse Chi Lop, 59, was arrested in Amsterdam in January 2021 by the Dutch police and Interpol. Before his arrest, he was one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives often compared with El Chapo and Pablo Escobar.
His organization was accused of producing synthetic drugs in the civil war-ridden and under-policed jungles of Myanmar, allowing his manufacturing operations to be largely camouflaged from authorities, CNN reported.
After being held in the Netherlands for almost two years, during which he made multiple unsuccessful appeals against his extradition request, the suspected drug lord was finally extradited to Australia on Thursday.
Tse’s extradition, the Australian police said, is the culmination of a long-running investigation into the said international crime syndicates, which it said trafficked methamphetamine worth almost US$3 million into Australia between 2012 and 2013.
The AFP believes that he laundered billions in drug money through casinos in Southeast Asia.
Tse has been charged with conspiracy to traffic commercial quantities of controlled drugs and faces lifelong prison if convicted by the Australian court.
He has previously spent nine years in a U.S. prison after being arrested in 1990’s for trafficking heroin into the country, after which he’d picked up where he left off.
