Drug smugglers using ever new tricks

Caught by relentless law en-forcers time and again, drug smugglers have to keep in-venting new tricks to stay ahead of the game, accord-ing to informed sources on the Sino-Burma border. The most well-known is to encase heroin - it is almost always heroin - inside the logs crossing the border from Burma into China. “But successful smugglers never employ the same tricks more than twice,” says a 60-year old Shan businessman who speaks Chinese and is well versed in the Chinese way of life. According to him and others, drugs have been carried in: 2001-2002 water melons, 2003 pickled bamboo shoots, 2004 scrap iron, 2005-2006 coal and charcoal, 2007 dry tea leaves, “In 2008, some smugglers began buying newborn in-fants from poor families, say-ing they were childless and wished to adopt them,” said the Chinese-speaking Shan. “They usually paid Yuan 5,000-6,000 (US$ 780-930) per child. ”The infant was then disem-boweled and filled up with drugs, administered disinfectants and perfumes to hide the stench, and carried across the border. “Like other methods, it was quite popular for a while,” he said. “But the police later got wise to it, and it had to be abandoned. ”The latest technique employed last year was to insert the drugs inside the bowel susing oiled condoms made in Thailand “because they are the slickest,” according to asource from Mongla. “One can carry half a kilo to one kiloin this way. ”In February, officials from Mongla based National Democratic Alliance Army(NDAA), caught 35 women transporters before crossing the border into XixuangbannaDai Autonomous Prefecture. The women told the officials their destination was Simao, north of Jinghong (Kenghungin Shan). “Since then, we haven’t caught anyone carrying drugs this way,” said an offi-cial. “But it doesn’t mean that the smugglers have run out of tricks. Right now they must already be using newer methods.”