Alfred W. McCoy The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade. Lawrence Hill Books: Chicago, IL 1972

Biography: Alfred McCoy is a professor of SE Asian history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His study of the heroin trade began in 1970 when, as a graduate student at Yale he was asked to write a quick history of the heroin epidemic among US troops in Vietnam.

Research Question/Hypothesis: McCoy’s book analyzes the covert alliance between intelligence agencies and drug lords throughout SE Asia and claims that this alliance has had a dramatic impact on the manufacture and distribution of high quality heroin. The 2^nd edition of his book expands this analysis to include the war on drugs and claim that rather than reduce the drug trade this war has merely redirected and strengthened it.

Data: McCoy’s data focuses on the alliance of the allied forces with the Sicilians during WWII, CIA support of Corsican gangsters during the 1940s, SDECE and CIA support of Hmong guerillas in Laos and Tonkin, political and criminal factions in Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, and CIA support of KMT troops in Burma. His data is drawn from interviews, written correspondences between official sources, military reports, newspaper articles, and historical narratives.

Findings:

Morphine was 1^st commercially manufactured in 1827 by E. Merck & Co., a German company, and marketed for medicinal purposes. In the 1850s E. Merck & Co. was the 1^st to manufacture cocaine in a concentrated crystal form (p.5-6)

By the early 1890s medical science was aware of the addictive properties of synthesized morphine. (p.6)

In 1898 Bayer Co. of Elherfild Germany began the mass production of diacetyl morphine marketed as heroin, a non-addictive medicine for adult aliments and infant respiratory disease. Bayer produced aspirin one year later. (p.6-8)

Expansion of drug production has 3 requisites: finance, logistics, and political protection.

Opium production in Burma increased from 18 tons in 1958 to 600 tons in 1970 due to CIA support of the KMT Chinese nationalists troops. Afghanistan opium production increased from 100 tons in ’71 to 2,000 tons in ’91 due to CIA support of the Mujahedeen and increased in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban to 4,600 tons. (p.15-16)

Sicilian gangster Charles Lucky Luciano, born as Salvatore C., was head of a youth movement that involved the mafia in the previously prohibited areas of drug trafficking and prostitution. He pooled together the support of the 24 Sicilian mafia families to form a plan for a modern national criminal cartel to control these markets. In 1936 Luciano was indicted. (p.29)

During WWII the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) recruited mafia support for the invasion of Sicily. ONI collaborated with Luciano and his partner Meyer Lansky, a Jewish Mafioso. Don Calogero Vizzini, Mafioso boss, worked with US forces in Sicily, at the request of Luciano, to plan the invasion, protect the roads for troops, arrange welcomes, and provide guides for the mountains. (p.35)

The Allied Military Government (AMGOT), under the command of Col. Charles Poletti, suspected of having ties to the NY underworld, appointed Don Calogero mayor of Villalba. Genco Russo and many other Mafiosos were appointed mayors to towns throughout W. Sicily after the fall of the axis powers. (p. 35)

“Allied occupation and slow restoration of democracy reinstated the mafia with its full powers put it once more on the way of becoming a political force and returned to the Onorota Societa the weapons which fascism had snatched from it.” (p.38)

In 1946 Luciano and over 100 other mafiosos were released and deported to Italy due to their service to the ONI. Upon arrival in Sicily, Luciano worked with Don Calogero to form an international narcotics syndicate. The cartel originally diverted legal heroin from the Italian pharmaceutical Co. Schiaparelli while a network of heroin labs were built throughout Sicily and Marseille. Morphine base was imported to Europe from the Middle East where the constructed labs converted it to heroin. The heroin was then moved throughout Europe and the US by a comprehensive distribution network. (p.38-9)

Sami El Khoury, a long term business associate of Luciano, was the cartel’s main exporter of morphine base from Lebanon. The opium was imported from the Turkey Anatolian plateau to Lebanon where it was converted to morphine base. (p.39)

Meyer Lansky supervised the cartel’s smuggling operations and managed the collection and concealment of profits. (p.40)

Santo Trafficante Sr., a Sicilian born Tampa gangster, was responsible for Lansky’s interests in Cuba and Miami. His son, Santo Trafficante Jr, took over some of his father’s responsibilities to control much of Cuban tourism and oversee heroin shipments from Europe to the US. (p.41)

The Luciano-Lansky-Trafficante partnership was a major factor in the formation of an international cartel to control the heroin market. (p.40)

1948-1950 the CIA allied with the Corsican underworld in Marseille, a port city in France, to combat the French Communist Party. The Corsicans, once in control, used the port to export heroin internationally. (p.17)

In the 1950s the Corsicans took control of manufacturing morphine base from the Sicilians. Meyer Lansky took a tour of Europe in 1949-’50 to arrange the switch. John Pullman contacted Swiss bankers on Lansky’s behalf to create the financial structure that laundered black market profits for the mafia for the next 20 years. (p.44)

Meyer Lansky purchased the Exchange and Investment bank in Geneva (p.45)

The Corsican mafia consists of small criminal syndicates throughout Indochina, N. Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Canada, and S. Pacific that cooperate with each other and the Sicilian mafia in the production and distribution of heroin to the US. (p.47-8)

Francois Spirito and Paul Bonnaventure Carbone were the 1^st Corsican gangsters to seek protection from the political world. In 1931 the partners reached an agreement with Marseille’s Fascist deputy mayor Simon Sabiani. In return for the suppression of socialist/communist demonstrations city employment was opened to associates of the underworld. The partners also collaborated with the occupying Gestapo during WWII. Carbone was killed by the Resistance in 1942 and Spirito fled to Spain, however, an element of the Corsican underworld was a strong ally of the Resistance. Their 1943 alliance sparked the most effective mass uprising in the Resistance movement (p.52)

The Resistance consisted of the communist force FTP and the socialist force MUR. In 1946 the MUR and FTP split their once unified force. Gaston Defferre, former head of allied intelligence and member of MUR, became mayor of Marseille. The CIA worked with MUR forces to secure France from communist control. In exchange the CIA guaranteed the Socialists an electoral base. (p.52-8)

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) and CIA worked through the unions of the American Federation of Labor (AFL/CIO) and the Geurini Brothers, the Corsican underworld, to secure Marseille from striking workers. The CIA alliance with the Geurini Bros restored Corsican political influence and transformed the Marseille waterfront into a major center of heroin production. The 1^st heroin-processing lab opened in 1951. (p.58)

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was established to coordinate intelligence between the CIA, State, and Defense Dept. William Colby, an OPC officer, said the OPC was “operating in the atmosphere of the knights templar” (p.57-8)

Marcel Francisie took control of Marseille’s heroin production from the Guerini bros. under France’s Gaullist Gov. (p.65-6)

SAC (service d’action civique) was organized by Corsican gangsters after the Gaullist Gov. was threatened by the 1968 May Revolution (p.67)

SDECE, a French intelligence agency, organized narcotics shipments to fund SAC operations (p.68)

Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’ resulted in the collapse of the Turkey-Marseille opium corridor. US gave Turkey $3 mil to create a 750 man police narcotics unit in 1967. In 1972 Nixon promised Turkey $35 mil in aid if an opium ban was imposed. (p.76)

In 1968 Santos Trafficante Jr went on a tour through Saigon, Hong Kong, and Singapore where he arranged a new opium corridor that connected the Caribbean, Latin, and S. America to Vietnam and Laos (p.76)

Laotian and Viet Minh nationalists captured French territory in Indochina after WWII. Major Roger Trinquier, famous for directing a torture campaign during the battle of Algiers and organizing Katanga’s white mercenary army to battle a UN peacekeeping force during the 1961 Congo crises, and Captain Antoine Savani, a Corsican, supervised covert operations to regain territory for the French. The Binh Xuyen River Pirates were given $85,000 annually and political protection for their criminal enterprises in return for Saigon. The Mixed Airborne Commando Group (MACG), under the control of Trinquier, organized 3 mercenary guerilla groups in the golden triangle: the Hmong in Laos, the Tai in NW Tonkin, and the Hmong in NC Tonkin. Their operations were funded by the opium trade. (p.131-8)

Operation X, France’s underground opium monopoly, was organized by SDECE members to fund guerilla operations. Hill tribe opium was collected and flown to Cap. Saint Jacques Action Service School, established by the French to train hill tribesmen. It was then transferred to Saigon where the Binh Xuyens transformed it to smokeable opium, distributed it locally, and sold the excess opium to Chinese merchants for export to Hong Kong or the Corsicans for export to Marseille. (p.133-5)

In 1955 MACG officers contacted US military personal, one of whom was Lucien Conien, to turn over their war and territory to the US. The US officially refused (p.144)

In 1955 the Binh Xuyen and the Vietnam army, under the direction of Ngo Dinh Diem, waged a war for the twin cities Saigon-Cholon. More troops were involved in this battle then the tet offensive. 500 were killed, 2,000 were wounded, and 20,000 were left homeless. This battle has been identified as an unofficial struggle for territory between France’s 2eme bureau and the CIA. After the battle French troops withdrew. (p.155)

The Kuomintang (KMT) Government collapsed in 1949 to the Maoists. In 1950 France and the CIA regrouped KMT military factions in the Burmese Shan states. In 1952 KMT troops shifted their focus from invading China to governing the Shan states. Once in control the KMT monopolized the Shan states opium trade and increased opium production nearly 500%. Shan state opium production increased from 80 tons before WWII to 300-400 tons in 1962. In a CIA arranged connection, KMT opium was transported to Thailand through CIA asset and leader of the Thai police Gen. Phao Siyanan. (p.162-73)

Civil Air Transport (CAT), owned by Gen. Claire Chennault and later bought by the CIA and renamed Air America, was originally subsidized, in an arrangement made by Paul Helliwell and Frank Wisner, to transport arms, munitions, and provide transport to the KMT. CAT planes were the primary method of transportation in an arms for drugs pipeline that shuttled arms and opium between the Shan states and Bangcock. (p.167-75)

Alfred Cox, an OPC guerilla expert who helped to train the KMT troops, was assigned control of operations in Hong Kong in 1951. (p.168)

Paul Helliwell formed the Sea Supply Corporation to mask arm shipments to the KMT. Sea Supply began to supply Thailand with naval vessels, arms, armored vehicles, and aircraft in 1951. Sherman B. Joost, an OSS commander of the Kachin tribal guerillas in Burma, worked in Bangock’s Sea Supply Office. He worked through Willis Bird, a private aviation contractor asked to be CAT’s Bangcock representative, to recruit support for the arms for opium transfers from Thai Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram. (p.168-84)

The guerilla camps controlled by the Thailand military: the KMT in N. Burma, the ethnic rebel armies in the NE shan states, and the Yunnanese opium warlords, provided essential logistics for the golden triangle heroin trade. (p.180)

In 1947 veterans of Thailand’s occupation of the Shan states during WWII organized a coup in Bangcock. This formed a political connection between Thailand and the Shan States that protected the opium trade. The majority of the military factions in control of Thailand since the 1950s emerged from this coup. (p.181)

1953 the CIA gave Thailand $35 mil in assistance. The CIA had 275 overt and covert agents working with the police force and created paramilitary units, the police aerial reconnaissance unit (PARU), and the border patrol police (BPP). (p.184)

In 1955 Ngo Dinh Diem banned opium in S. Vietnam in an effort to break Binh Xuyen’s control of the trade. In 1958 Diem’s chief advisor Ngo Dinh Nhu reopened opium dens and contacted Chinese syndicates in Cholon to set up a new distribution network. Opium was transported from Laos to S. Vietnam through 2 major pipelines: Air Laos Commercial, an airline managed by Corsican gangster Bonaventure ‘Rock’ Fransisci, transported opium on flights carrying agents and supplies to Vietnam, and the 1^st Transport Group, under the command of Nguyen Cao Ky whose CIA intelligence missions in Laos was to transport opium to Saigon. (p.197-204)

In 1963 a coup ordered by the US executed Diem and Nhu. Nguyen Cao Ky, with full US support, was elected Premier in 1965. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, Ky’s power broker and US ally in charge of the Military Security Services (MSS), the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), and the National Police, helped to reinstate Diem and Nhu’s opium empire. He appointed Nguyen Thanh Tung, aka Mai Den or Black Mai, a former Viet Minh and French intelligence agent, head of the CIO and placed him in charge of smuggling operations between Laos and Saigon. (p.207-12)

The black market was used as a political weapon between rivals in Vietnam. Accusations of involvement with the black market ousted one political faction while another faction, with US support took control of the Government and the black market. (p.249)

The air force bought heroin directly from labs in Laos’ Vientiane region, managed by the Chinese entrepreneur Huu Tim-Heng. Heng, the son of Thai Prime Minister Souvanna Phuoma, and 2 other financiers used a partially constructed Pepsi-Cola plant on the outskirts of Vientiane, funded in part by USAID, to cover large financial transactions and purchase chemicals needed for heroin labs. Heng was also responsible for connecting Gen. Ouane Rattikone, Laos’ largest opium merchant, to the Nguyen Cao Ky’s air force. (p.227)

Vietnam’s 1970 invasion of Cambodia made the transportation of opium through Vietnam’s central highlands easier. Vietnam’s 5^th air division transported opium and heroin on their daily flights from Cambodia to S. Vietnam and Vietnamese naval officers formed a cartel for smuggling operations on the water. (p.228-34)

Pres. Thieu contracted bulk arrivals of opium to Chinese syndicates in Saigon-Cholon who converted it to morphine base and organized its local and international distribution. The Chiu Chau syndicate organized in Cholon in 1970 by ‘Mr. Big’, known as the largest drug financier in SE Asia, was one of the leading syndicates overseeing opium conversion and distribution. Chinese chemists from Hong Kong arrived to upgrade golden triangle laboratories to produce high grade #4 heroin. A heavy sales campaign was pushed on troops in S. Vietnam creating the 1970 GI heroin epidemic (p.223-37)

In 1965 S. Vietnam replaced Turkey as Europe’s source of morphine base. (p.250)

Lucien Conien, an OSS officer who worked with the French Resistance and CIA agent involved in Vietnam’s ’63 coup, had close ties to most of the important Corsican leaders. (p.249-50)

In 1965 Meyer Lansky sent a courier and financial expert to investigate Hong Kong’s narcotics and gambling rackets. (p.253)

In 1968 Santo Trafficante Jr visited the Continental Palace Hotel in Saigon, owned by the Franchinis, Corsican’s in control of an opium and currency pipeline between Saigon and Marseille, and Frank Furci, a Corsican gangster with ties to the Chiu Chao, in Hong Kong. He made two more visits to the Continental Palace Hotel Saigon in 1969 and 1970 were summit meetings were held to discuss the reorganization of the drug trade. Due to these meetings the major center of the heroin trade switched from the Mediterranean to the golden triangle and Hong Kong. (p.253)

By 1970 the majority of heroin in the US market originated in Hong Kong. The heroin was transported to the US either through the Caribbean, across the Pacific Ocean to Chile or across the Atlantic Ocean to Argentina. Both routes were transferred through Paraguay before reaching the US. Auguste Joseph Ricort, Marseille gangster who worked with the Gestapo and former leader of the ‘French Connection’, was believed to have smuggled $2.5 bill in heroin to the US through Argentina and Paraguay between 1968-1973. (p.254)

Chinese syndicates were formed through the colonialists’ Shanghai opium monopoly dating back to 1840. Local Chinese compradores were contracted to handle the opium trade. The compradores were dominated by the Chiu Chao until they were forced out of business by the ‘Green Gang’ in charge of French concessions in 1918. The Green Gang, led by Tu Yueh-Sheng, created a unified cartel that controlled the importation and conversion of Szechwan province opium to heroin. At least 10 refineries were opened in Shanghai in response to the 1928 Geneva Convention heroin ban. (p.263-4)

In 1927 Tu Yueh-Sheng formed an alliance with KMT leader Chiang Kai-Shek to repress Shanghai’s labor movement in exchange for KMT protection of opium shipments on the Yangtzee river. A tax bureau that collected $20 mil annually in fees collected for the transportation of opium was formed in Hankow; the two main banks of the city were dedicated to the drug trade. The Green Gang later formed the basis for KMT’s most notorious secret police force. The OSS formed an alliance with Tu Yueh-Sheng and the KMT during WWII. (p.265-8)

The Green Gang and the Chiu Chao were forced to migrate to Hong Kong by the Maoist revolution were the Chiu Chao regained control of the heroin trade. The Chiu Chao initially controlled only opium and morphine imports from Thailand, the manufacture of heroin, and its whole sale distribution with Cantonese family associations and secret societies in charge of retail distribution. The 1965 police repression of Cantonese secret societies resulted in a complete monopoly of the heroin trade in Hong Kong by the Chiu Chao. In 1971 police believed 5 Chiu Chao gangsters were responsible for financing the heroin trade; Ma Sik-Yo was thought to control 50% of Hong Kong’s morphine and opium imports. (p.270-5)

In 1969 heroin refineries in the Burma-Thailand-Laos border region began production of No. 4 heroin resulting in the GI heroin epidemic. The labs producing No. 4 heroin were staffed by Chiu Chao chemists. (p.286)

The main heroin labs supplying the GI market were Tachilek in Burma, Ban Houei Sai and Nam Keung in Laos, and Mae Salong in Thailand. Tachilek was the base of operations for Burmese paramilitary units and Shan rebels allied with the CIA. Nam Keung was protected by Major Chao La, commander of the Yao mercenary troops in NW Laos, a guerilla group organized by the CIA. Ban Houei Sai was owned by CIA ally Gen. Ouane Rattikone. Mae Salong was headquarters of the KMT 5^th army division who had worked with the CIA since the 1950s. Long Tieng, operated by CIA appointed Hmong leader Vang Pao, and Vientiane, protected by Ouane Rattikone, were also major centers of heroin production in NW Laos?? In 1965 Air America began to transport Hmong opium and heroin out of Long Tieng and Vientiane. (p.288-9)

Chinese syndicates bought opium transported by the KMT from Burma to N. Thailand where it was sold domestically or exported to Hong Kong. (p.287)

The Laotian army is the only army that was at one time was financed entirely by the US Government. (p.288-9)

The Hmong guerillas in NW Laos, trained during France’s Operation X, were reorganized, trained, and armed by the CIA during the 1960s and early 1970s. The Hmong guerillas numbered 30,000 in a tribe of 250,000. Due to high casualities, the CIA relied on villages to supply their 13-14 yr old boys for combat. (p.289-91)

Opium and gold were Laos’ only valuable exports. Laos was able to maintain opium exports to S. Vietnam after the 1954 withdrawl of the French Air force due to small charter airlines, founded by French veterans and Corsican gangsters, collectively known as Air Opium. Some of Air Opium pilots worked for Pacific Industrial whose CEO was Paul Louis Levet, the leader of the Corsican’s Bangcock based syndicate, Europe’s main source of SE Asian morphine base. Laos’ opium exports were monopolized in the mid 1960s by Air Laos Commercial, owned by prominent Corsican Bonaventure ‘Rock’ Fransici and silent partner Ngo Dinh Nhu, that transported 300-600 kilos of opium daily. All flights from Laotian terminals required permission from the Royal Laotian Army. (p.294-9)

In 1958 the CIA appointed Phoumi Nosavan to lead Laos’ right wing coalition in opposition to the elected neutralist government. Nosavan assisted in CIA coups, election rigging, and Hmong guerilla supply operations. In 1962 Nosavan organized the large scale import and export of Burmese opium turning NW Laos into one of the major heroin producing centers of the world. In 1964 Gen. Ouane Rattikone, former Pathet Lao commander and CIA asset, staged a coup which placed him in control of the Laotian Government and opium trade. (p.300-2)

Vang Pao was elected the Hmong commander by the CIA. In 1967 he established the airline Xieng Khouang Air Transport with the help of the CIA and USAID which acquired its initial aircraft from Air America and Continental Air Services. The mountain landing strips created through Vang Pao’s mobilization of Hmong villagers allowed airlines to buy farmers’ opium crops directly further centralizing Laos’ opium monopoly. Vang Pao’s headquarters at Long Tieng in NW Laos, under the direction of CIA agent Thomas Clines, became a major center of the heroin trade when the Chiu Chao chemists arrived in 1970 to supervise production. Air America was known to be involved in the transport of opium and heroin at Long Tieng in 1971. (p.304-21)

CIA agent Anthoney Posepny, aka Tony Poe, was Vang Pao’s chief advisor. He went on to train the Yao tribesmen who protected heroin refineries in the Shan states. (p.307-37)

Edgar ‘Pop’ Buell, a CIA agent working as an agriculture volunteer in Laos, worked with Hmong farmers to improve their techniques for planting and cultivating opium. (p. 308)

In the early 1960s Gen. Ouane Rattikone was asked by Phoumi Nosavan to establish a link to the Burmese opium trade. Ouane and the commander of Shan nationalist troops Gnar Kham, a CIA asset, arranged an arms for opium pipeline between the Shan states and Laos at Ban Houei Sai. The Shan nationalist movement has a long history of financing themselves through the opium trade. William Young, the CIA agent in charge of the movement, used revenue from KMT protected opium shipments to Thailand to fund arms and training. U Ba Thein, an early Shan leader, organized Lahu Xian tribesmen, at the request of the CIA, for intelligence work in China; an operations that became interwoven with the Burmese opium trade. (p.341-5)

The heroin refinery at Ban Houei Tap trademarked the famous double U-O globe brand heroin. (p.374)

In 1979 the opium crops of SE Asia were devastated by monsoon rains. Between 1979 and 1980 a network of heroin labs that sprung up on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border captured 60% of the US heroin market. (p. 464)

In the 1980s Pakistan’s Islamic dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq suppressed opium production. At the same time guerilla zones in Afghanistan increased opium production and exported it to Pakistan. By 1981-2 Afghanistan’s opium fields were connected to Pakistan’s heroin refineries. (p.472)

In 1977 the CIA transformed Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), a formerly small military intelligence unit, into the strong arm of Gen. Zia ul-Haq’s military regime. The ISI has since been used as a front organization by the CIA to accomplish its covert objectives. In 1979, 6 months before the Soviet invasion, CIA covert support of Afghanistan’s Mujahedeen through the ISI began. Gen. Zia was later awarded $3 billion in military aid by the Reagan administration. The money was largely directed towards the Mujahedeen resistance. The ISI selected Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-I Islami guerilla group and known owner of heroin refineries, to command the Mujahedeen from Pakistan’s NW Frontier. By 1988 there was an estimated 100-200 heroin refineries in the khyber district of Pakistan’s NW Province. Afghan peasants on captured territory were ordered by the Mujahedeen to grow poppy and the Mujahedeen supply apparatus, arranged by the CIA, was used to transport it. When Hekmatyar failed to take Kabul the ISI trained and supplied radicals from the Pahstun tribe, the Taliban.

(p.474-9)

In 1983 Gen. Zia gave Pakistani traffickers permission to deposit their drug profits in the Bank of Credit and Commerce Intl (BCCI) resulting in the infamous money laundering scandal. (p.480)

Operation Cyclone was a CIA covert operation aimed at destabilizing the Soviet Union through the promotion of militant Islam inside the Central Asian Republic. Many Islamic terrorist groups originated in this time period. (p.475)

In 1985, Hamid Hasnian, the Vice President of Habib Bank and manager of Gen. Zia's finances, was arrested for heroin trafficking.

Mirza Iqbal Baig was the boss of a Gov. protected drug syndicate in Pakistan. Gen. Zia's death resulted in a civilian government in Pakistan in 1988 and the election of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who declared a war on drugs. Baig was close to several key leaders of Bhutto's People's Party and avoided arrest.

During the 1980s, Afghan warlord Mullah Nasim Akhundzada controlled the Helmand valley and ordered that opium be planted on 1/2 of his territory.

The Medellin cartel was created in 1980 when the Marxist guerilla group M-19 kidnapped members of the Ochoa family of Columbia. Family members created an army that seized control of a portion of the Columbian coke trade. M-19 later formed an alliance with Medellin. (p.487)

Ethnic rebels in Uzbekisatn, Chechnya, Georgia, Turkey, Kosovo, and Bosnia armed themselves through participation in the westward flow of heroin from Afghanistan to Europe. The Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) in Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan mafia, the Armenian syndicates allied with Nationalist Dachnak party, The Azeri Grey Wolves, Osserian and Abkhazian sepratists in Georgia, and Chechen nationalists transported heroin through their countries with poiitical impunity. (p.500-8)

The muslim warlord Juma Namangani coordinated a loose syndicate that transported heroin throughout central asia. His Islamic Movement for Uzbekistan (IMU) controlled 70% of narcotics moving through Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan.

The alliance in the 1980s between the Italian syndicate, La Sacra Corona Unita, and Armenian crime groups transformed the adriatic sea into a major black market transportation route between Turkey and Europe.

Albanian exiles used profits from drug sales to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) for its revolt against the Belgrade army. Prince Dobroshi was a major heroin trafficker in Europe who supported the KLA until his arrest in 1999. Arkan, aka Zeljko Raznatovic, was a narco-nationalist who was backed by Belgrade's State Security. He used profits from drugs and contraband to finance the Scorpion Gang, a terrorist group that attacked Kosovo nationalists and rival drug dealers. Muhamed Xhemajli was a major drug dealer in Switzlerland who joined the KLA in 1998 and battled the Serbian police for control of smuggling corridors.

In July 2000 the Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered a ban on opium cultivation greatly reducing production in an attempt to gain diplomatic recognition. In 2001 the CIA mobilized the northern alliance, drug lords in Afghanistan’s northern frontiers, and the Pashtun warlords in control of the opium traffic along the Pakistani border to overthrow the Taliban. Afghanistan once again became a major center of opium production. (p.520)

Strengths/Weaknesses/Implications in Context: McCoy’s comprehensive research extended from the opium monopolies of Europe’s colonial empires to the modern day heroin refineries of SE and Central Asia making his book an essential and somewhat overwhelming resource. His analysis of the alliance between government agencies and major figures in the drug trade was conducted under the hypothesis that these relationships evolved from good intentioned efforts to combat an enemy; be it fascism or communism. His research, however, implicates the US Government, through its support of Sicilian and Corsican gangsters, ethnic tribesmen, and political factions in SE and Central Asia, in every major heroin pipeline to the US since WWII. The study of the war on drugs in the 2^nd edition of his book further implicates the US Government in the drug trade by demonstrating that the suppression of drugs only occurs when it benefits a competitor with strong political connection or aides in strengthening a newly formed cartel. His hypothesis ignored some of the greater implications of the information he presented leaving the recurrent historical pattern of Government involvement in the drug trade without an appropriate explanation.

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