Chapter 1.2

CHAPTER 3

Invaded by impatience the man called Xie Fu had the urge to spur his horse to speed its pace but suddenly remembered that it would serve no purpose as the caravan of donkeys would not be able to catch up. He always found tedious to ride the road through the mountainous jungle from northwestern Myanmar to the border with Thailand at each annual journey after the opium harvest season.

The animals loaded with heroin base dough ran in single file along the narrow paths and Fu dozed while the five men with him, curious combination of carriers and custodians, watched with keen eye and weapons drawn the contours of the forest since they knew that militants of United Wa State Army (known as USWA for its acronym in English) attributed themselves the exclusive right to travel through the border crossings and could fall on them anytime.

Xie Fu had no illusions about the mercenaries who accompanied him. He counted that they would abandon him to his fate should the USWA presented, if they had not betrayed and denounced him themselves, so he always maintained some contact with reality. His mind pondered the steps in the future; he was still tied to the route of opium in the Golden Triangle because his father Xie Guang, one of the Lords of Opium in southern China, so imposed, but realized that the business was in decline. Afghanistan had surpassed Myanmar as the main producer of opium, and the area of production in the latter country had decreased due to government eradication programs, although ultimately it was increasing again due to inaction of corrupt officials who should control it. In addition, they had to pay bribes in both Myanmar and Thailand, where the base was transformed into heroin, and those payments were permanently increasing; finally the assaults of the USWA and other militants from different ethnic groups had become a nightmare. Fu had other businesses in mind, with higher volume and less subject to physical hazards: ephedrine, a key component of synthetic drugs, undoubtedly the drugs of the future. The conversion of the old opium business to an ephedrine business had but one obstacle: Xie Guang.

The discharge of firearms startled the sleepy Fu. The guard who was on his right he uttered a cry, opened his arms and fell from his horse. The Chinese took over his own beast and spurred to start a flight forward, not knowing that was expecting him in that direction but certain of what waited behind. A deep pain tore a moan when his left arm was pierced by a bullet. In the gallop he suddenly found himself with two mounted men with long guns pointed at him. Fu did not hesitate and fired his gun on them at close range. The head of one of the men broke into a bloody pulp while the horse of the other rolled heavily. Fu turned his head and saw the chief of his guards was targeting him. No doubt he had laid a trap in agreement with the attackers. Both men fired in unison and although Fu was shooting back his aim was more accurate and the traitor fell from his saddle. Fu´s horse, frightened by the shooting took charge of carrying him out of the combat zone as he tried with difficulty to stay in the saddle while stopping the bleeding arm.

Fu had come to Bangkok sneaking across the border between Myanmar and Thailand, and then was transported by territory of that country by former dealers with whom his father had been associated for decades. He had paid the services received partly in local currency, partly in US dollars and he even had to sacrifice a couple of pearls of medium value he always carried for difficult transactions.

In Bangkok he had already hired a sea voyage on an old freighter dedicated to all types of contraband. The ship would take him to the port of Quanzhou, in his native Fujian Province. There he would seek the means and men to take over his father´s empire. He had decided that he would pay any price to avoid getting involved again in extreme situations like that he had crossed into Myanmar.

Xie Fu had taken over the business complex inherited from his father which included a number of legitimate businesses extended in the Chinese main port cities, including Qingdao, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tianjin. In each he had rented warehouses, logistics and had dealings with local authorities. Fu wanted to replace the illicit trade base on which those legal activities rested, that under the tutelage of his father had been the international trade in opium and its derivatives, primarily heroin, by modern drugs like crystal meth and their raw material . The business consisted in providing those precursors to Chinese MDMA or ecstasy manufacturers who supplied the Chinese domestic market, and to customers of ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine from abroad, particularly Mexico, where designer drugs were produced for the US market as well as for Mexican and Central America using ephedrine as feedstock. Legal shipments had been tightly controlled by health and regulatory authorities in each country which only allowed the import of very small quantities for the pharmaceutical industry, so he had to mount the smuggling business of these precursors.

China and India are the largest producers of Ephedra distachya, a bush about one foot high from which ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine –the active alkaloids from the plant- are chemically extracted. The Chinese central government has numerous and extensive farms and produces ephedra alkaloids for the local pharmaceutical industry and exports them abroad under strict controls to avoid them being used in narcotics manufacturing, but outside those state farms the bush grows wild in some parts of China without government control.

Having been Mexico a major importer of ephedrine, which largely was used illegally in the production of MDMA, the government of that country under pressure from the American DEA had severely restricted this product from entering the country from China and India, with the result that the illegal trade turned into a triangulation whose final destination was the same but now going through other countries including Argentina, which was not under the radar of the DEA and where imports grew from a few hundred kilograms for the pharmaceutical industry use to tens of tons in a few years, until a scandal involving multiple murders forced authorities to become aware of the problem and put restrictions on imports. It is at this business where Xei Fu is pointing.