Golden Triangle and drug trafficking
1.What do you know about the Golden Triangle and drug trafficking? How were its environment and location
contribute to its involvement in drug trafficking? What if you were a law enforcement official? Where and how
would you attack the heroin/opium and drug trade?
2.In what ways is the drug business similar to legitimate businesses?
3.Discuss the economics of people who work in the drug trade, from the source to street delivery, from the
people at the very beginning of the process (such as coca leaf pickers) and at the very end (street salespeople)
make very little money.
4.How do informal financial transfers such as the chop and hawala facilitate money laundering?
Sample Solution
Golden Triangle and drug trafficking
The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name “Golden Triangle,” coined by the CIA, is commonly used more broadly to refer to an area of approximately 950,000 square kilometers (367,000 sq mi) that overlaps the mountains of the three adjacent countries. Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent, it has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s. Most of the world`s heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when Afghanistan became the world`s largest producer. The Golden Triangle is now one of the world`s leading areas for the production of synthetic drugs and particularly methamphetamine as production has scaled up of Yaba tablets and crystalline methamphetamine, including for export to Australia, New Zealand, and across East and Southeast Asia.
