With no further COVID-19 restrictions, Asia’s drug cartels are thriving, UN report warns

() — He synthetic drug trafficking in Asia is reaching “extreme levels”: criminal groups are establishing new drug trafficking routes to evade a crackdown by authorities and methamphetamine prices are reaching new lows, according to a new report released Friday.

Research by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found methamphetamine seizures in East and Southeast Asia, which rose to record levels during the pandemic as cartels switched to larger bulk shipments and risky, they returned to the numbers prior to the covid-19 pandemic last year.

But other key indicators such as arrests, street availability, purity, as well as low wholesale and street prices, “indicate that supply has remained very high or unchanged,” the report from the agency says. UN.

And as pandemic border closures and travel restrictions began to lift, international criminal organizations began to reconnect, with “patterns from late 2022 and early 2023 beginning to resemble those of 2019,” he said. Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

There are other signs that the drug trade is recovering. Japan’s customs officials saw an increase in methamphetamine smuggling of air passengers in the second half of 2022, after the country reopened its borders. Trafficking networks from West Africa into East and Southeast Asia, which “virtually disappeared” during the pandemic, have now resumed their activities, according to the report.

“Regional networks of more powerful traffic can operate with a high degree of certainty that they can do so and will not be stopped and, as a result, can dictate the terms and conditions of the market,” the report warned.

Some countries have intensified their anti-trafficking efforts in recent years. Stricter law enforcement in Yunnan province in southwestern China and along the Thai border with Myanmar resulted in a significant drop in methamphetamine seizures in China and a slight decline in Thailand.

But, in turn, traffickers have adapted to “try to get around what governments are doing,” Douglas said.

Andaman traffic

Asian drug cartels generate billions of dollars through the global narcotics trade while generating a fraction of the attention of their counterparts in Latin and Central America, in part because they maintain a much lower profile and are less likely to episodes of internal warfare.

For years, most of the regional methamphetamine production has taken place in the jungles of the Golden Triangle, a remote area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet that has long been one of the world’s main narcotics hubs. world.

The closely guarded area still sees large volumes of drugs pass through, but criminal groups are increasingly turning to western shipping lanes, diverting the supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea, “where it seems few were looking.” Douglas said.

From Myanmar, the methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs then travel to the rest of the world, with shipments previously found as far away as Japan, New Zealand and Australia. South Asia is also getting more into this market, with methamphetamine being shipped in “large volumes” from Myanmar to Bangladesh and northeast India, according to the report.

Despite crackdowns by governments and rising seizures, wholesale and street prices for methamphetamine fell to record lows across the region in 2022, a sign that large numbers continued to arrive, according to the report. uninterrupted drug supplies. He also pointed to the high number of drug-related arrests, and admissions to drug treatment centers, as further evidence of a strong trade.

Other UNODC findings in recent years have painted a picture of a booming drug industry in asia despite the pandemic, with some drug cartels taking advantage of distracted governments struggling to contain the virus and enforce public health measures.

Organized crime groups have also capitalized on political instability, such as the 2021 military coup in Myanmar and the country’s ongoing conflict, which has turned the country’s already lawless border regions into a hub of production and smuggling. even more perfect.

increased ketamine

In addition to methamphetamine, ketamine production and trafficking is also increasing rapidly in the region, with authorities seizing 27.4 tons of the powerful dissociative anesthetic often used as a party drug.

That figure is 167% higher than the previous year, according to the UNODC report. Almost all countries and territories in the region reported an increase in seizures, except for Japan and Hong Kong.

“The ketamine situation in the region reflects in many ways the supply-side approach used to expand the methamphetamine market in the mid-2010s,” Inshik Sim, UNODC regional coordinator for synthetic drugs, said in a statement. a press release.

“That said, information on ketamine use is limited and it is unclear how widespread it is; research is urgently needed.”

Cambodia, long a transportation hub, has also begun to emerge as a hotspot for drug manufacturing, with authorities uncovering a series of secret industrial-scale ketamine labs, storage facilities and processing warehouses.

The chemicals and equipment found in these labs point to a sprawling international network, originating or transiting from at least 12 different countries and provinces, according to the report. For example, chemicals produced in France were found with Vietnamese writing on the packaging; other substances came from Poland, India, Indonesia and South Korea.

The large number of chemicals found also point to a boom in ketamine production. Cambodian authorities seized 518 tons of chemicals in 2022, compared to just 5 tons in 2020, alarming international and regional leaders.