nextbet Drugs, Scams and Sin: Myanmar’s War Has Made It the Global Crime Capital

The flower fields stretch out from the mountain village along most every road — fluttering patchworks of white and pink and purple.

The beauty in this corner of Shan State, in northeastern Myanmar, might seem a respite from the country’s brutal civil war. Instead the blooms are a symptom: It is all opium poppy in these fields, and Myanmar again ranks as the world’s biggest exporter of the raw material to make heroin and other opiates. And that’s just the beginning.

Since descending into a full-blown civil conflict nearly four years ago, after the military overthrew the elected government, Myanmar has cemented its status as a hotbed of transnational crime. It is a playground for warlords, arms dealers, human traffickers, poachers, drug syndicates and generals wanted by international courts.

Myanmar is now the biggest nexus of organized crime on the planet, according to the Global Organized Crime Index.

animoto slot

CHINA

Hundreds of unregulated

rare earth mines operate

near the border with China.

INDIA

Kachin

State

BANGLADESH

CHINA

Myanmar is one of the world’s

largest producers of opium

and synthetic drugs.

Mandalay

Shan

State

MYANMAR

LAOS

Naypyidaw

Scam factories and online

gambling dens are rampant

near the border with Thailand.

Yangon

Karen

State

Bay of Bengal

THAILAND

INDIA

100 miles

Hundreds of unregulated

rare earth mines operate

near the border with China.

Kachin

State

INDIA

CHINA

Myanmar is one of the world’s

largest producers of opium

and synthetic drugs.

Shan

State

MYANMAR

LAOS

Naypyidaw

Scam factories and online

gambling dens are rampant

near the border with Thailand.

Karen

State

Bay of

Bengal

Yangon

THAILAND

INDIA

150 miles

Source: U.N. Myanmar Information Management Unit

By Agnes Chang

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The criminality flourishing in Myanmar’s fertile soil carries disastrous consequences for its 55 million people. It is also spreading the fruits of transgression across the globe. With more than half of the country battle-struck following the military coup in February 2021 that unseated the civilian authority of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar is racking up dubious superlatives.

CHINA

Shan

State

MYANMAR

Pekon

Township

THAILAND

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CHINA

Konemon

MYANMAR

Shan

State

THAILAND

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MYANMAR

Myawaddy

If Mr. McDonnell buckles, two other Republican senators in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature who have also not yet committed to changing Nebraska’s system are likely to follow his lead, according to a number of Republicans and Democrats involved in the discussions going on at the State Capitol.

Township

Karen

State

THAILAND

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Pangwa

Kachin

State

CHINA

MYANMAR

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