VIDEO: Meth Highway
'Meth Highway'
22 April 2024
Four Corners
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER FAZAL, REPORTER: Inside this Ho Chi Minh City building is an apartment used by an alleged baron of Australia's meth trade. For months I've been investigating the supply chain for methamphetamines – mostly ice or crystal meth.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: That's just come off a block, two bags here. Just to show you.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: They're huge.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Following high level traffickers, dealers, cooks, runners, enforcers..
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: I'm loyal to the people I'm with and I'm, um, aggressive, um, and violent to protect them.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Retracing the journey the drug takes from its source in South East Asia, to the people who control the trade there – powerful militia and secretive Chinese syndicates.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: If you were to describe the triads in one word, what word would you use?
JEREMY DOUGLAS, UN OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: They're ruthless.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: Cold.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: We've never been more challenged. It's relentless. It's, it's 24/7.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Australia is one of the most lucrative meth markets. Last year, we shot up, smoked, and snorted around ten and a half tonnes of meth, a 17 per cent increase on the year before. We spent about ten billion dollars on the drug.
JANE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: It's easy to get, it's easy to use. It's reasonably cheap.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: But the consequences are devastating.
MATTY: The humiliation, the judgement, the segregations.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I've travelled thousands of kilometres along the meth pipeline to investigate the trade, and to hunt a man believed to be one of the drug barons behind it.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I'm at this address waiting for a meth cook. I'm a little bit nervous because. It's taken a lot for us to convince him to be part of this documentary and tell his side of the story. I hope he shows up.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He's here. Turn the camera off.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: Hey
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Thanks for coming
MAYETA CLARK, PRODUCER: Is it okay if I film?
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Can she film yet?
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: Yes. Yeah, yeah, of course.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: This cook has asked me to call him Brendan.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What have you got in your bag?
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: I just brought some product.. Just to show you. How to extend the product. He says he's going to explain how he "cuts" his ice.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What's in this tub?
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: so this is Methylsulfonylmethane, which is MSM. It's for, um, your muscles. It's like a joint relief product.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: So it's good for you.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: Yeh It's on special right now at Chemist Warehouse. It's something that liquefies and, uh, re-solidifies at the same rate that ice does.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Guys like Brendan operate at the bottom of a vast global supply chain.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: These are just half grammes. So that's a gramme.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: How much is that worth?
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: For good stuff on, At a low street level it should be 300, 350. Anything cheaper would be a red flag for me.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: at a high level commercial trafficking level, what kind of product are they dealing with?
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: Uh, I over 50 grams is commercial quantity. So I bought some product here that's just come off a block, two bags here. Just to show you.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: They're huge.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: the scale and difference is, yeah, it's quite massive.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: How much money could you make off one of those big rocks on the street?
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: I think if you put this out on the street, you'll get rolled
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: "Cutting" maximises profits by diluting the meth with a cheap substitute to bulk out the product. And Brendan's going to show me just one part of the process.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: you make what is called a boat. (49:37) once it's solidified, you can break it off snd you get these little shards. If you look at the little packet earlier. It's pretty consistent, almost identical. You could make big amounts of this for $20.
BRENDAN, DEALER/COOK: When I light it, you'll see it'll start to liquefy and you'll see the smoke starts swirling. Now it's moving and then this one you'll be sucking in, moving it forward and back. You'll see it just start to get back to what looks sort of like or you know, at a skating rink.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Australia is a key market – we're among the world's biggest users.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: For the past 10 years, outreach workers Jane and Mike have seen the havoc ice wrecks first hand.
JANE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: On the street, there's more chaos, there's more, a lot more engagement with police. There's a massive increase in what we call drug induced psychosis.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Jane says ice has taken over.
JANE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: 95% of my caseload is now meth users.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: They spot a rough sleeper Jane used to work with. His name's Matty and he says he'll meet them in a nearby park. He also tells Jane and Mike he had a hit a few hours ago
MIKE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: He keeps saying he's gonna go and then he, he gets distracted and does something else.
JANE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: and if he doesn't come in five or 10, I would guess probably we'll be here for hours. Time doesn't have much relevance here.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Eventually, they catch up with him.
MIKE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: how are things going for you at the moment?
MATTY: There's something going on here. My psyche's picking up on it.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Matty's paranoid police are coming for him. He insists on going somewhere private.
MATTY: What about pop, snap, crack or well, snap, crack or pop.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: After about an hour and a half, he's ready to talk.
JANE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: How's today been for you?
MATTY: Um, uh, lately I've been struggling in myself a bit, you know. I was up all night.
JANE, ST. VINCENT'S HOMELESS OUTREACH: Are you not sleeping at night or it's just too hard to..
MATTY: No, I just finally got some decent ice last night.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Matty starts describing his experiences of the drug.
MATTY: I've had to do things that I don't like doing.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: As I listen to Matty.
MATTY: Sometimes you can get a contaminated hit. A dirty hit is quite unpleasant of unpleasants.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I can't help but think about the meth barons swamping our streets with this devastating drug.
MATTY: And it can take a life possibly at the extremes.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I want to know who's behind it.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I keep hearing about a guy, who's suspected of being behind some of the large shipments of meth hitting our shores. I've been trying to get his name for weeks … so far no luck. I've decided, if I really want to find him, I need to understand his world. To operate a meth syndicate you need five things. A manufacturer; a trafficker; a door — someone who creates a hole at the Australian border; muscle – a bunch of violent people to keep everyone in line; and finally you need distributors who get the drugs to the street.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I'm on my way to meet with a syndicate who work with a Chinese triad. The whole meeting's cloaked in secrecy and light on details. At the last minute they give me an address.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: We've hit some unexpected traffic and I'm really anxious that they might think something's gone wrong on our end or that they couldn't trust us because we're even just a few minutes late. That's how high the level of paranoia is in situations like this.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Two guys meet me at the door. They're on edge. They tell me to go to the laundry. There's a heap of meth and a heap of money.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: It's quite a, it's quite a, almost like a citrusy smell. It's really, yeah. Like lime or citrus.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: They say lately they've been getting undercut by Mexican cartels, who are starting to dominate this multi-billion dollar market.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: They tell us this is their morning's takings.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: the people I've spoken to who supply large commercial quantities of methamphetamine have said that the Chinese importers will buy it for roughly one to $3,000 in, uh, Northern Thailand. Um, but by the time they get it across the border here, they charge roughly 10 to $30,000, um, per kilo. And then the distributors, purchasing off the Chinese triads will charge roughly $70,000. So between 60 and $70,000 for a kilo.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: The profits are massive.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: It's taken me a while, but a former high level distributor has finally agreed to talk. He was once near the top of the Australian meth game. It's hard to fully verify what people are saying. But their stories match a lot of what I've seen and heard during our investigation. It's rare for anyone of this calibre to speak candidly on camera.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Are we rolling?
MAYETA CLARK, PRODUCER: We're rolling.
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: Who are we rolling? [laughs]
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He wants to be known as Jay. Jay, who's done time for trafficking, started dealing when he was 14.
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: I'm more worried about how I'm gonna get, how I'm gonna put food on the table.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Jay says he got started out selling weed.
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: On a daily basis I was getting like, at least what, 70, 80 phone calls. Like I couldn't even sit down to have proper meal, you know.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He tells me he moved up the chain, selling to other dealers. Then a distributor offered him some meth.
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: They asked me how long was it I was gonna take to actually move the, the, the, the product. And I, I told them, I don't know, look, 'cause honestly I didn't know how long I was, what I was capable of. And yeah, took me two days. Less than two days.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Soon, Jay says he was making thirty to forty grand a week.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Were you ever tempted to touch it?
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: No, not really because just seeing all the, everybody else having the downfall. It's, it's disgusting.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: what makes it disgusting?
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: The fact that people see that as a priority… I've had clienteles where for example.. where like before they had the kids running around in nappies and everything, the nappies hasn't been changed in the past two, three days.. and like instead of them using that financial, like financial funds on their own kid, they passing out. It's just like, man, it's just Yeah.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Didn't that spin though, that they were paying you and?
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: Yeah. Did. Yeah. But it did. But at the end day if they don't, don't grab it from me, they'll grab from elsewhere. Someone else could probably give 'em shit product that's even lower grade, like percentage than mine, which is doesn't even, so don't even getting the money's worth.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Things have changed since Jay was in the game.
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: a kilo was a lot of a large amount of product, you know what I mean? whereas now we're talking about, we're talking about half a tonne tonnes. Man, the triad, that's where the triads come in.
JAY, FORMER DISTRIBUTOR: with Triads it's contracts, for example. Um, what you can capable of doing and what you promise them, what you can able to do and yeah, keeping your word to it and whatnot. Otherwise they just cut you off. And if not, then everything comes with, you know, consequences and everything else. Like, you know, you, you know what you sign up for. They know what they sign up for.
One of Jay's associates says the triads guarantee delivery. If a shipment is lost, they wear the cost and send another.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: For years several of those Triads operated in a lucrative network called The Company.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I've heard that the suspected drug baron I've been looking for has been working with what's left of that network. At its height the Company was thought to be earning as much as 17 billion dollars a year – more than some Fortune 500 companies. Australia was a key market.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: The man police allege was head of The Company, Tse Chi Lop, was arrested and eventually brought to Australia to face trafficking charges. in 2021.
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER KRISSY BARRETT: This arrest would be one of the most high profile arrests in the history of the AFP.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He's awaiting committal in a Melbourne prison.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: operation kungur that started off in 2017 was a, a, a priority focus on what we call is The Company, uh, a Southeast Asian Syndicate that was responsible for significant imports into Australia. And through the work of the AFP, working with over 17 agencies and, and a range of countries, from our perspective, we've, we've greatly degraded the activities of that syndicate.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I'm learning more about the meth business. For months, I've been chasing a former enforcer. He's finally agreed to meet. There's a real risk he won't turn up.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: Hello
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Johnny. Are you here?
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: Yeah, I'm here.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: There's only one form of regulation within the drugs trade: violence.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: I'm loyal to the people I'm with and I'm, um, aggressive, um, and violent to protect them.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Johnny served 16 years in prison for hacking a man to death with a samurai sword.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: in the moment when I need to do something, it's like there's a switch and it just click, and I'm going
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: This is the kind of attitude you need to become an enforcer.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: I can't hold back. Even if you pull me back, I will go forward again.. If I seen him bleeding, I wanna see more bleeding.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: But that's, that's, you know, that's not normal.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: That's not normal. Exactly.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I want to know how someone becomes "muscle" for a Triad. Johnny tells me his life flipped in his early teens.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: ..We, we, we're a really loving family. I was a good, good kid at home.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He says he started hanging out with a troubled kid. And within months, Johnny and the kid were roaming the streets, getting into fights.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: I name us white rose in Asian culture, white rose mean death.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Johnny says he got a reputation for extreme violence that led to prison where he met a senior Triad.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: If you could only use one word to describe the triads that you've met, what would that word be?
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: Cold. you can feel from when you sit with him, you talk to him, you looked at him, you can actually felt that that coldness from him. And the power.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He tells me more about Triads.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: they very well organised. To them business is more important than violence. They only use violence only when they needed it. But if someone else is doing it, not them, which is smart, right?
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I've heard from other sources tell me there's a hierarchy amongst Triads. Melbourne Triads report to Sydney. Sydney to Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Macau. And Macau to mainland China. I ask Johnny to confirm, but he doesn't want to talk about it. Finally, I ask him about Tse Chi Lop, also known as Sam Gor.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Police are making, uh, a big statement about the recent arrest of one Chinese triad called Sam Gor.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: Oh yeah.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Yeah. And they're saying that they've got the godfather of the whole of the Southeast.
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: Yeah.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What, what do you make of that?
JOHNNY, ENFORCER: If they was the biggest person in the organisation and then now they get busted, how come their organisation's still standing still? Who's running them?
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: People are consuming almost as much meth as when The Company was allegedly operating under Tse Chi Lop and what I'm hearing is the rumoured drug baron is helping to keep the meth flowing. People are telling me if I want to find him and understand his trade. I need to go to South East Asia. My first port of call is Bangkok where I find Patrick Winn.
PATRICK WINN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: God, your handwriting is, uh, nearly as horrible as mine..
PATRICK WINN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: your credibility just shot up … hah!
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Patrick's studied Asian drug markets for a decade. He explains how the meth business works.
PATRICK WINN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: it begins when an organised crime syndicate is looking for a place to build a meth lab. That syndicate will go into Myanmar and find an armed group. Armed group will say, yes, you can build a meth lab here. They'll usually site it next to a stream. It takes a lot of water to make meth. And, uh, the armed group will take a tax of the meth production. Um, that's pretty much all they do. They make sure that it's not raided by cops. They usually control their own areas like little countries. So the cops can't come in anyway.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Patrick tells me drug runners take the meth from the lab in Myanmar to the border. Syndicates move it from the border to a port. From there it's packed into legal goods – like tea or speakers – and smuggled into Australia.
PATRICK WINN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: if there's demand on the Australian side for more crystal meth, if it's really moving, the order can go all the way back up to the meth labs in Myanmar, and they have the capacity to produce more. the flow is so heavy that even if cops do pick off this truck or that truck they're getting at best 10%. It's just unstoppable.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: The heartland of meth production in South East Asia is the Golden Triangle. It's a mountainous region that covers the borderlands of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: It's rush hour in Mae Sai, northern Thailand.
Authorities are on high alert. They're looking for drugs, mainly meth that might have slipped across the border. Border areas like this are where the vast majority of drugs enter Thailand. This is one of the frontlines in the global war on drugs. The day before we arrived, the Thai military shot and killed 15 meth smugglers trying to cross a nearby border. At a rural warehouse not far from the checkpoint … a drug smuggler starts work.
MR B, TRAFFICKER: I remove each section like this.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Panel by panel, he shows us how he readies his scooter for an illicit cargo.
MR B, TRAFFICKER: First, I crush all the air out like this.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: teabags usually crammed with kilos of crystal meth. Every time he goes out, he risks jail or death. He's part of a vast network that stretches all the way to Australia: a dark highway of drugs which has risen more than five hundred per cent rise in the past decade.
MR B, TRAFFICKER: I'm putting dust over the screws.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: People get shot, people get killed doing this job.. that could be you.
MR B, TRAFFICKER: I have debt to pay at the gambling. So I have no choice. I have to do this job to make money to pay back my debt.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He's just one of many people who make a living on the edges of the Golden Triangle's multi-billion dollar meth trade.
JEREMY DOUGLAS, UN OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: The Golden Triangle is actually quite a big area, but this is the centre of it. So we're in Thailand, about 200 metres, right over there is Myanmar, and right across the river is Laos. So we're literally where it is, where it all happens.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I'm standing with Jeremy Douglas at the apex of the Golden Triangle. He's led the UN's anti-drug operations here for more than a decade.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: How much is the meth economy in this region worth?
JEREMY DOUGLAS, UN OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: Um, the last time we measured it a couple years back, pre covid was, uh, about $60 billion. If you look at where concentrated production really takes place, it's really here. And it is in Latin America, primarily in Mexico.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I ask Jeremy what role Triads play here.
JEREMY DOUGLAS, UN OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: They've really had deep hooks into the drug trade through this country and through the surrounding countries, through Hong Kong, through, uh, Yunan, through Macau for decades. Um, so really their role in this today is, is what it always was, which is to essentially connect the products of these places to the markets.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He says traffickers first came here for heroin in the 1970s and then introduced meth in the mid nineties. The arrival of Tse Chi Lop allegedly changed the game again.
JEREMY DOUGLAS, UN OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: He did something quite unique for the first time ever, he took crystal meth. Changed the business model and mentality around how do you procure and get and distribute meth to the streets. And basically did that by connecting this place to Australia. It's never, never been done before.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: It's further up the Mekong, in Myanmar, where massive super labs have been producing large amounts of meth bound for Australia.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I'm talking to lots of people here about the meth trade. At a local cafe I meet a Thai general who casually drops that a key player in the global meth trade is an Australian man. He won't tell me his name. I immediately think of the alleged drug baron.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: We've actually managed to find someone who currently works in a crystal meth super lab. It's incredibly rare access and he's speaking to us at great danger to himself. We're on our way to meet with him right now. I've been brought to a house on the outskirts of the border town Mae Sai.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Hello, Mr. A?
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: Yes.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Nice to meet you. Thanks for having us. Can we come in?
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What exactly do you do for work?
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: My job is, I work with the Por Kru, that's what we call the master – the master crystallises the ice, then carts it out to the laboratory. Then I seal the bag and pack them. And then take it over to Thailand.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: How did you get into this kind of work?
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: I used to be an athlete.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Mr. A used to play the popular Thai sport, sepak takraw, at a high level … but got injured.
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: I had an accident and broke my leg.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He says started using and selling meth. He was taken in by a former teammate's family, who put him to work in a meth lab.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: How much drugs do they typically make?
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: We start from 10 kilogram, 20 kilogram, 30 kilogram, or sometimes up to 50 kilogram.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Is that every day?
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: <affirmative>
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I ask him who owns the lab.
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: I can't tell you the name of the owner.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Uh, are they Chinese syndicates?
MR A, METH LAB WORKER: The owner is from Wa, United Wa State Army.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: The United Wa State Army are an ethnic militia that profits enormously from the meth trade. The Wa are a people Indigenous to Myanmar and China. A lot of the superlabs are on United Wa State Army territory in Myanmar's Shan State. They're backed by Beijing, which turns a blind eye to Chinese organised crime plying their trade on Wa land.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I've just found out a smaller Wa militia might meet with me. They're called the Wa National Army. After several hours, I'm near the Myanmar border.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: : We're in, um, Ban Rak Thai waiting to meet with someone from the Wa National Army who hopefully begin to escort us across the border into Myanmar.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I don't have a lot of faith that we will get across the border tonight, just because we're losing light rapidly. Our fixer is on the phone desperately pleading with whoever's on the other end of the line to get us across. Um, hopefully we will.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I'm not identifying our fixer because she works on both sides of the border with some serious people. After fifteen minutes of wrangling, she has news.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What, what do you think our chances are?
FIXER: We can cross, but not tonight. We go to talk, like, to see if we can cross tomorrow six o'clock.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Yeah. So even tomorrow's up in the air still?
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: The Wa militia is saying they're not sure they can guarantee our security. Then they have a change of heart.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: We've just been told that we can cross at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning. They were really nervous about the tense political situation at the moment. It's a very quiet town now. It's around 10 o'clock, and I've seen two police cars, uh, kind of patrolling the area. So we're hopeful that everything's calm tomorrow morning and we can actually get across.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I set out at dawn with an escort. We stop a few hundred metres from a Thai military outpost. If they see me, there could be trouble.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: We're about to cross the border into Myanmar. It's been extremely difficult trying to get access into the country because a recent wave of violence has inflamed the Civil War there. This volatile region, um, has different ethnic groups fighting for territory, and it's also where Australia's meth is produced.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: They tell me this is the first time international media has visited this base.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: This is Colonel Lu MONG, local commander of the Wa National Army.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: So how, how close is the fighting?
COLONEL LU MONG, WA NATIONAL ARMY: It's over there, not too far – about four to five kilometres from here. When the Karenni are fighting with Tatmadaw, we can hear the sound of cannon fire.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What do you hear?
COLONEL LU MONG, WA NATIONAL ARMY: We can hear when a helicopter comes and also the gun fire.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Lu MONG has about 200 fighters living here. I want to know how close I am to the source of meth production in Myanmar.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Does the Wa National Army receive funding and support from the United Wa State Army?
COLONEL LU MONG, WA NATIONAL ARMY: United Wa State Army and WNA, we all the same group, the same name, same species. So we are, we talk together and work together.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Some of the experts that we've spoken to about this region say that wherever there are guns and militias, there's gonna be drug production. What do you make to make of that?
COLONEL LU MONG, WA NATIONAL ARMY: We are against it [drugs]. But right now there's fighting in our country. That's why some groups are getting what they need through the drug trade.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: In the past, uh, the Thai authorities have arrested former members for drugs, manufacturing and drugs, trafficking. What do you say to that allegation?
COLONEL LU MONG, WA NATIONAL ARMY: We're very sad to hear reports like that. Our group is against the drugs trade. And we help and cooperate wherever we can to stay a drug free zone.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Lu Mong's militia may or may not be making or trafficking the meth, but since the 1950s Shan state militias have been benefiting from the drugs trade. Before meth, this area was known as an opium-growing region. For decades, it was controlled by the notorious narco warlord, Khun Sa. He's been romanticised in popular movies.
KHUN SA, AMERICAN GANGSTER CLIP: Quitting while you're ahead, is not the same as quitting
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: The former US Attorney General called him the "Prince of Death".
THOMAS CONSTANTINE — HEAD OF US DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY: The individual primary responsible for this worldwide devastation of drug addiction is Khun Sa.
KHUENSAI JAIYEN, FOUNDER SHAN STATE HERALD FOR NEWS: Hello. Yeah.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Pleasure to meet you.
KHUENSAI JAIYEN, FOUNDER SHAN STATE HERALD FOR NEWS: Welcome to our place.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Khuensai Jaiyen was Khun Sa's PR person … Today, we catch up with him at the office of a dissident newspaper he founded in Chiang Mai.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: And can you tell us a bit about this amazing jacket you've got?
KHUENSAI JAIYEN, FOUNDER SHAN STATE HERALD FOR NEWS: when the village headman has something to tell the villages.. you'll see a Shan beating, uh, a hollow log..
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: And that's your role now? Your, your role now is really to hit the log and have people listen.
KHUENSAI JAIYEN, FOUNDER SHAN STATE HERALD FOR NEWS: Yes
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: He says today's meth trade runs the same as the opium trade did in Khun Sa's time.
KHUENSAI JAIYEN, FOUNDER SHAN STATE HERALD FOR NEWS: to fight against the Burmese government we didn't have any foreign government supporting us, and the only source of income for us was opium, which is already there. And in the old days, it wasn't, uh, illegal.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Khuensai says the real winners weren't the Shan, they were the Chinese and Laotian generals who controlled the trade.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Journalist Patrick Winn says the syndicates running the superlabs in the Golden Triangle are usually Chinese.
PATRICK WINN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: they might be triad affiliated, they might be full-blown triads, but they don't have to be. These people are interested in business, and their sons and daughters go to nice private schools, and they live in normal neighbourhoods, and they're just really good at moving things from A to B. It really comes down to that.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What exactly does the meth economy in Australia fuel in this part of the world? In Myanmar specifically?
PATRICK WINN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: When someone goes and buys a bag of crystal meth in Australia, um, they're fueling a long chain that goes all the way back into the Golden Triangle, into the mountains of Myanmar. Uh, you have made a, uh, Chinese organised crime syndicate a little bit richer. Uh, you probably partially funded, uh, the purchase of everything from weapons, medicine, um, you know, asphalt to paved roads in an impoverished part of Myanmar. I mean, it actually helps prop up Myanmar's junta as well.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: After months of digging, phone calls and late-night meetings, I've got the name of the suspected drug baron. I discover he may be living in Vietnam or Cambodia. And I learn police are investigating him too. With a name, our team gets this facebook video. His tattoos help identify him – they're exactly what you'd expect of a senior figure in the Asian organised crime world. But His name is Daniel Rodney Badger. This is a video of his lavish wedding in Vietnam.
Badger is on the Australian Federal Police's High Value Target list.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Is it fair to say that you'd have to be one of the major drug importers to be classified under that high value target list?
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: Yeah, there's a range of factors to consider, but that would be one of the key factors. Yes. We are sitting in AFP headquarters. Uh, there's a, a room, an ops room in this building, a windowless room, and we have pictures of all of the high value targets on, on the wall, and we're just working through them one by one and ticking them off. It's a, it's a priority focus in terms of taking them out and removing their influence on the drug trade.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: Daniel Rodney Badger is of significant interest to the AFP.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: In 2016 Badger listed this public housing residence in Western Sydney as his address. Just a year later, he became a major shareholder in a multimillion dollar Vietnamese chemical and fertiliser company.
The company has bonded warehouses and they say they export fertilisers to Australia. Badger sold his holdings in 2018. In 2020, he opened a car wholesale business in Ho Chi Minh City.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: I'm not gonna go into individual cases, but what I can say in relation to these people, uh, these high value targets offshore, we know where these people are. We know what countries they're in. Uh, we know where they live, and we are coming after them.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: About two years ago, it's believed Badger obtained Cambodian citizenship. He also got a new Khmer name – SOVANNARITH SEN. We tried to contact him.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: I've got two phone numbers for Daniel Rodney Badger, and, uh, gonna give him a ring and put some of these allegations to him.
VOICE MESSAGE #1: The subscriber you have called is not available at the moment.
VOICE MESSAGE #2: Sorry. But your call cannot be completed.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: We sent him a list of questions, but didn't hear back. We asked the Cambodian government if they're aware of Badger's alleged activities in the meth trade… and if, given these revelations, his citizenship will be revoked. They didn't reply to our questions.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Why can't the AFP stop the flow of meth on the streets in Australia?
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: we are having an impact, we're having an impact both domestically and internationally, but unfortunately, uh, Australia still has an insatiable demand for drugs.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: International traffickers have told us that the AFP is so obsessed with seizures, uh, they've been exploiting it as a weakness by diverting your attention with dummy loads of a few hundred kilos while they import tonnes elsewhere.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: seizures of drugs is, is important preventing drugs hitting hitting the streets of Australia. But our priority focus is on the people that are behind the, these, these drug seizures. And, and that's what we've tried to publicise in terms of the important work that we are we're doing in this space. But again, I think, I think it's fair to say we've never been more challenged, organised crime has become more globalised, it's become more sophisticated, it's become more connected. Uh, it's relentless. It's, it's 24-7.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: Governments in the west have been fighting the flood of drugs from the Golden Triangle since the middle of the twentieth century. For Australia, the frontline has now shifted to meth coming in from North America. It's clear that taking out major players doesn't necessarily stop the flow – other markets will meet it.
MAHMOOD FAZAL, REPORTER: What more could Australian authorities be doing?
JEREMY DOUGLAS, UN OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: this is no longer a policing issue when it gets to this level of production and trafficking. I think it's one of those things that needs to have a public discussion. It requires also a, a response that's political in nature. It can't simply be in the back rooms and left to police alone.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER IAN MCCARTNEY, AFP: Law enforcement is, is one part of the solution. But again, the narrative is incredibly important, particularly in relation to, uh, harm reduction. It, it's having such a disastrous impact on, on our community, and we need to continue. We need to continue to tell people about that message.
Australia's addiction to crystal meth or 'ice' is having devastating consequences, but beyond the street dealer, most are unaware of the drug's murky supply chains – and the faceless figures profiting at the top.
Four Corners reporter Mahmood Fazal has spent months investigating the crystal meth pipeline, travelling from the streets of Melbourne to a major source of production in South-East Asia.
He gets rare access to those who are from this dangerous underworld – including a dealer, cook, runner and enforcer – and names for the first time a man suspected to be a key player in the Australian meth trade.
Four Corners: Meth Highway, will air at 8.30pm on Monday 22 April on ABC TV and ABC iview.