THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DRUG LORD IS A CANADIAN CITIZEN
Or at least that's what we're supposed to believe...
You probably haven’t heard of Tse Chi Lop, but according to Interpol and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, he is one of the world’s biggest drug lords.
He has often been compared to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar, although he seems to have a much better job than either of them at flying under the radar.
Allegedly, the organization that he led played a vital role in revolutionizing the global drug trade by mass-producing synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, which has almost completely supplanted heroin in Canada.
Tse Chi Lop happens to be a Canadian citizen, but most Canadians remain unaware of his existence.
In November 2021, Discovery released a documentary on Lop titled The World's Biggest Druglord – Tse Chi Lo, which was broadcast in South East Asia, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
The following 1-minute trailer is worth watching.
“MORE OFFICE SPACE THAN SCARFACE.”
Although almost every news report about Tse Chi Lop compares him to El Chapo, his style couldn’t have been more different. He reportedly kept a low profile, although he did apparently own a private jet and was rumoured to gamble away massive amounts of money. He also apparently had a team of Thai kickboxers who acted as his bodyguards.
Other than that, there’s not a lot to say about his personal life. He reportedly is all about the business and liked to stay in the shadows.
He was arrested in the Netherlands in January of 2021 and deported to Australia in December 2022, where he will stand trial alongside an alleged accomplice.
THE STORY OF TSE CHI LOP
Tse Chi Lop was born in Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities. Guangzhou is located on the Pearl River 120 km North of Hong Kong. For a long time it was the only Chinese port accessible to most foreign traders, making it of vital historic importance during the Opium Wars.
He moved to Hong Kong at some point before immigrating to Canada in 1988. He settled in Toronto.
In Toronto, he was part of the Big Circle Boys, a faction of the Big Circle Gang.
WHAT IS THE BIG CIRCLE GANG?
The Big Circle Gang is a Hong Kong-based criminal organization which was originally formed by imprisoned members of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
The Red Guards were a violent paramilitary social movement which consisted mostly of students. They were responsible for countless acts of violence and intimidation against those they perceived as insufficiently loyal to Mao’s Communist Party.
At one point, they desecrated the Cemetery of Confucius, where the venerated Chinese sage and many of his descendents are buried. During the desecration, the corpse of a dead duke was removed from its grave and hung naked from a tree. This incident should give you an idea about how fanatical these students were.
Eventually, Mao ordered a crackdown on the Red Guards, leading some of them to flee to Hong Kong. Some of those refugees then became involved in illegal activity. The term “Big Circle” was a term that Hong Kongers used to refer to people from a certain part of Mainland China.
ARE THE BIG CIRCLE GANG TRIADS?
Many people, if you tell them that a Hong Kong-based criminal organization is running billions of dollars worth of drugs all around the world, most people will assume that you must be talking about the Triads.
I’m a big believer in using words precisely, so let’s be clear that the term Triad is not a blanket term for any Chinese criminal organization. Triad groups have a specific history and a specific structure, and are often compared to a secret society.
That said, Triads are not one monolithic group. They are perhaps best thought of as the Chinese equivalent of the Italian Mafia. The Triads consist of multiple different intergenerational criminal dynasties. Like Mafia families, there are constantly shifting alliances and rivalries between those dynasties, but they are united by blood, history, culture, and certain practices, as well as by involvement in certain industries.
Wikipedia explains:
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "triad" is a translation of the Chinese term San Ho Hui (三合會), referring to the union of heaven, earth, and humanity.[15] Another theory posits that the word "triad" was coined by British officials in colonial Hong Kong as a reference to the triads' use of triangular imagery. This theory however is highly improbable as the word "Triad" had been used to describe secret society in China as early as 1826, well before the colony was even formed. It has been speculated that triad organizations took after, or were originally part of, militant movements such as the White Lotus, the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, and the Heaven and Earth Society.
The generic use of the word "triads" for all Chinese criminal organizations is imprecise; triad groups are geographically, ethnically, culturally, and structurally unique.
"Triads" are traditional organized-crime groups originating from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Criminal organizations operating in, or originating from, mainland China are "mainland Chinese criminal groups" or "black societies".
Although the Big Circle Gang consists of people from mainland China, it seems likely they were absorbed into the Triads.
What can be said with certainty is that both groups now operate from the same geographic area. Both organizations consist of Han Chinese members and speak Cantonese.
If not one and the same, they are almost certainly deeply interconnected.
WHO ARE THE BIG CIRCLE BOYS?
In the 1980s, Big Circle members began migrating, some to Vancouver. By the 1990s they were across Canada. “The BCB do business in small independent groups or cells, unlike the highly-organized structure of Triads,” according to a report prepared for the B.C. government.
In 2007, a high-ranking member of the Big Circle Boys was gunned down in front of his mansion in Vancouver's ultra-rich Shaughnessy neighbourhood.
At the time, the Province reported:
Vancouver police say Hong Chao "Raymond" Huang was shot numerous times in an apparent targeted murder Saturday night.
Huang's 10-year-old daughter called 911 to say her dad had been shot. He was dead when police arrived. Numerous shell casings littered the ground.
Huang, 45, was "well-connected" to the Asian organized gang, a police source told The Province last night.
"We know the name . . . You would rank him as a Dai Lo [Big Brother] . . . somebody of influence who could organize stuff and make things happen . . . He is quite high up there," said the source.
The Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada lists the Big Circle Boys as the main Asian organized crime group in B.C., dealing in credit-card fraud, loan sharking, drug smuggling and counterfeit goods and currency.
"He is known to keep a low profile, driving around in small cars," said the source.
This last statement is important. Unlike other gangsters, who like to flaunt their wealth and enjoy their notoriety, Asian gangsters often prefer to keep it low-key. This is facilitated by linguistic and cultural barriers, which they use to their advantage. Most victims of Chinese criminal organizations in Canada are themselves Chinese.
This brings us to Tse Chi Lop.
HOW DID TSE CHI LOP RISE TO PROMINENCE?
Although Tse Chi Lop has been compared to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, the details about him are scant.
The Toronto Star summed up most of what is known about him in one succinct article:
Tse was born in Guangzhou in 1963 and immigrated to Toronto in 1988 as part of the wave that left Hong Kong after the U.K. agreed to hand the city over to China.
In Toronto, he was part of a criminal group known as the Big Circle Boys, part of the Big Circle Gang, which was originally formed by imprisoned members of Mao’s Red Guard during China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.
The Big Circle Gang is now is part of Sam Gor, a network of five triads that were often at war with each other during the 1990s.
Those groups also include the three biggest Hong Kong and Macau triads: 14K, Wo Shing Wo and Sun Yee On, as well as the Taiwan-based Bamboo Union.
Tse served prison time in the U.S. from 1997 to 2006 for heroin trafficking after being arrested with some senior members of the Montreal-based Rizzuto Mafia family, which had representatives in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area].
Among those convicted with Tse were Emanuel Raguso, an inlaw of Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto, who died in 2013, and Salvatore (Sam) Nicolucci, a close Rizzuto associate who also served prison time for cocaine trafficking.
Tse spent most of his prison time in Elkton, Ohio, and then returned to Canada. He was back in Hong Kong by 2011.
Tse served his nine years behind bars with fellow two Big Circle Boys associates, Wai Dai Cheung and Chung Wai Hung.
WHAT IS THE SAM GOR SYNDICATE?
The Sam Gor Syndicate is a name which was apparently made up by English-speaking police in order to refer to a specific criminal organization, which lacked a catchy English-language name. Apparently, it is referred by its members as simply “the company”.
The name Sam Gor comes from one of Tse Chi Lop’s aliases, which is Cantonese for “Brother Number Three”.
Sam Gor is made up of five members of different triads: the 14K Triad, Wo Shing Wo, Sun Yee On, Big Circle Gang and Bamboo Union. The group is associated and does business with many other local crime groups such as the Yakuza in Japan, the Satudarah Motorcycle Club and the Comanchero Motorcycle Club and Lebanese and other mafias in Australia, and is responsible for what is thought to be the biggest drug-trafficking operation in Asia's history.
Wikipedia also claims that:
The Sam Gor syndicate generates billions of dollars each year from the trade in methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that Sam Gor generated between $8 billion and $17.7 billion in revenue from meth in 2018 had "expanded at least fourfold in the past five years".
[…]
Sam Gor is said to be largely responsible for the dramatic shift in recent years away from drugs such as heroin and towards synthetics such as methamphetamine, ketamine and fentanyl in East and Southeast Asia, and has been implicated in very large shipments outside the immediate region including a 1.2 ton seizure of methamphetamine in Geraldton, Western Australia in 2017.
Wow! That’s a lot of meth!
TSE CHI LOP WAS ARRESTED EN ROUTE TO CANADA IN 2021
Tse Chi Lop was arrested in Amsterdam in 2021 and subsequently deported to Australia, where he awaits trial on drug trafficking charges.
According to Wikipedia:
Tse had been wanted for years and subject to an Interpol notice since 2019 after he was named publicly. Tse was arrested en route to Canada from Taiwan during a stopover in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on 22 January 2021.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) was seeking his extradition from the Netherlands to face trial.
The arrest was the culmination of Operation Kungur, led by the AFP and supported by roughly twenty law enforcement agencies in Canada, China, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, and the US (including the DEA). Taiwan's Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau assisted. It remains unclear how he was able to live without detection or arrest in Taiwan after being publicly named in 2019.
Raising concerns about the influence of organized crime in the region after the arrest, UNODC Regional Representative Jeremy Douglas commented "It’s a great result...but the organisation remains". He added, "...while taking down syndicate leadership matters, the conditions they have effectively used in the region to do business remain unaddressed, and the network remains in-place. The demand for synthetic drugs has been built, and someone will step in to replace Tse."
In July 2021 a Dutch court approved an order to extradite Lop to Australia to face trial. He was eventually extradited in December 2022 to face charges in Australia.
And that is where our story ends for now. If reports are to believed, his arrest has not affected the operations of the “Sam Gor Syndicate”.
There are also unanswered questions. For example, Tse Chi Lop was arrested en route to Canada. Why did he think that he could enter Canada when he was one of the world’s most-wanted criminals?
Hopefully, more information about this operation is revealed when “Asia’s El Chapo” stands trial.
Until then, I will remain unconvinced that “Brother Number Three” really was the kingpin that authorities are making him out to be. It seems to me equally likely that Tse Chi Lop was simply a fall guy for the Triads.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments!