COMING: A TON OF TROUBLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300170004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: June 18, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

WA11311?3INGTON STAR
Approved For Release 2001/03/049 l-RQP80-0t%_b Pffd30
By MIRIAM OTTENBERG
Star Staff Writer
A ton of 96 percent pure Southeast Asian
heroin -- enough to satisfy more than one-
tenth of all American dope addicts for a year
- is headed this way as fast as its Chinese
owners can gear up their smuggling apparatus
to get it out of Asia.
This No. 4 or injectable heroin originally
was destined for American troops in Vietnam.
But the withdrawal of the troops has left the
narcotics smugglers literally holding the bag -
in fact, thousands of hermetically sealed bags
of heroin.
Presence of the vast oversupply of heroin
was disclosed by John Warner, chief of the
strategic intelligence office of the Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
He said it's still "upcountry" - in the
"golden triangle" of the opium trade, where
Laos, Thailand and Burma meet. What DNDD
hopes to accomplish with intelligence from the
Central Intelligence Agency and Thai and Lao-
tiara police is to "interdict" or block the move-
ment of the heroin down the line to where it can
be shipped to the United States.
"With the withdrawal of our troops and the
stricter military controls to locate heroin
users," Warner said, "the market for No. 4
heroin dwindled. In the tri-border area, the
price has dropped to $750 a kilo, which is just
their break-even point.
"We speculate that some of this heroin is
going to find its way to the \\'estern world.
Some of it already is being seized in the major
United States ports - New York, 1-Mianii, San
Francisco and Seattle."
Right now, Warner said, there's a sizable
oversupply of No. 4 heroin --- equivalent to the
best out of Marseilles. It's been stockpiled for
lack of buyers.
The heroin traffickers, he said, had expect-
ed the United States to remain in Southeast
Asia for the next quarter of a century. The
troop pullout caught them off guard.
"We have pictures showing how they have
doubled the plant capacity of their heroin labo-
ratorics," Warner said. "They're still produc-
ing because they have chemists under contract,
but they're trying to sell practically at cost
while they try to link up with American and
European buyers. We know heroin is still in the
pipeline."
The Chinese dominating this traffic are?the
overseas Chinese, motivated by profit rather
than ideology. Warner rejected the oft-
expressed theory that the Chinese Communists
are seeking world domination
by making the young people of
the West slaves to narcotics.
The intelligence chief said
Peking officials can claim lit-
tle influence over the border
provinces where opium is the
principal and usually only
money crop. The tribesmen
who grow the opium, he ex-
plained, live on both the
Chinese and Burmese sides of
the border and ignore the cen-
tral goverments of both coun-
tries.
Instead, they deal. with the
various insurgent forces who
war with each other to gain
control of the area. Opium, in
effect, pays for these tribal
wars.
The farmers sell the raw op-
ium to the insurgent forces
whose leaders differ little
from the old Chinese warlords.
Those' leaders process the
opium into morphine hale or
into No. 3 smoking heroin or
No. 4 heroin. They safeguard
it, escorting the shipments
from remote areas and trans-
port the finished product to
distribution networks in Laos,
Thailand, Vietnam and Hong
Kong.
or sucked the smoke iroug 777
straw.
When Chinese traffickers
started selling; No. 4 heroin to
American troops, Warner said,
they told them it was cocaine
- and was not addictive.
The bottom has dropped out
of their business just at the
time when farmers produced a
bumper crop of opium, in
March and April,
"The traffickers are still
buying this year's opium
crop," Warner said, "but we
don't know their plans for pro-
ducing No. 4 heroin. We as-
sunne they will produce some
but will adjust to the market.
We know the price is moving
imp a little as they see the end
of their tremendous oversup-
ply. and start gearing up.
agan.
"The Chinese entrepreneurs,
however, are not going to ov-
erextend themselves now that
the troops are no longer there
to make it easy for them. They
don't like to take chances.
They don't like to deal with
people they don't know and
they don't like to deal with
Caucasians."
Pay With Weapons F orces Stiffened
The overseas Chinese pay Being aware of that attitude
for the heroin principally with and concerned about that ton
gums the warring insurgent of heroin pointed in this direc-
111,,-- 1- C111-Lt-1U U1~6
One factor leading to in- BNDD is going to increase its
creased production in the forces in the Philippines.
"golden triangle," Warner Here's his reasoning:
said, was the introduction of The Plulippines are on thew
hermetically s e a l e d packs
route of the traffic moving
which made it possilble to from Southeast Asia to the.
keep No. 4 heroin from deteri- United States, Most Filipinos
orating.
Production of No. 4 heroin speak English and have good
Contacts in the United ,States.
goes back to about 1967. With They have close commercial
the increased military pres- ties with the Chinese and lan-
ence in Vietnam, Warner said, guage ties with Latin Ameri-
many of the laboratory opera- ca. 't'hey could well, emerge as
tors saw an expanding market the middlemen of the traffic.,
for the new product. Latin American this are rel-.
Up to then, most of the 750 eva.nt because Latin America
tons of opium produced an- has been the transshipment
nually in the "golden triangle" point for heroin shipped from
was consumed by addicts in Europe to the United States.
the area in the form of smok- Despite some testimony on
ing opium or No. 3 smoking Capitol Bill that much of the
hero w}nch ta nc" 7o s
Approved For Release 200fi4nro`Ic-iln~~~4-0