From Opium to Dirty Money

The starting point for the drug cash flow is the cash size of the opium and heroin traffic in the Far East itself, before the drugs obtain the stupendous price markups available in Western markets. The price pyramid is known to be the following  

By the time the merchant, typically a Yunnanese, has brought the gum by mule train to the triborder area, e.g. Tachilek or Chiengrai in Thailand, the price has doubled, to 200 

Existing data permit the estimate that a division of an average 700-ton crop into 300 tons for heroin refining and 400 tons for opium shipment for Far Eastern smoking purposes is usual. (3) 

The wholesale value of the 700 tons of annual opium product in the Golden Triangle, prepaid in the triborder area, is roughly 

While no hard estimates are possible, the cash flow in the Far East related to this first phase of opium production alone could not be less than 1 billion. That by itself is 15 percent of the estimated assets of foreign banks in Hong Kong, or 10 percent of estimated bank assets of foreign banks in Singapore, or precisely Thailand s 1977 balance of trade deficit  

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