Australian police are preparing to extradite Tse Chi Lop, a Canadian-born Chinese who was just arrested in the Netherlands. Police believe his syndicate supplies 70 percent of Australia’s drug imports, and that his associate, a suspected member of the Chinese Communist Party‘s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is on the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions blacklist.
According to police sources, court documents and leaked documents from Crown casinos, Xie Zhile is the most important suspected drug trafficker targeted by police in the past 20 years, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. It is suspected that members of his organization have also invested in the Communist Party’s “One Belt, One Road” major infrastructure projects.
The gang leader’s accomplice is a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference?
Police believe that Xie Zhiluo, who was born in 1964 in China’s Guangdong province, was a low-level member of the Triad before immigrating to Canada in the 1980s, and was arrested by the FBI in 1996 for his involvement with a U.S. drug cartel that bought heroin from the Golden Triangle region of Asia.
Xie Zhiluo then served nine years in prison. Police intelligence indicates that he re-established ties with the Triad after his release, including developing a relationship with Wan Kuok Koi (nicknamed: Beng Ya Kui), a bigwig of the Triad’s 14K faction. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Wan Kuok Koi is a close partner of Tse Chi Lok.
Last December, the Trump administration blacklisted Wan Kuok Koi under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The U.S. Treasury Department said Yin was a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and used the Communist Party’s “Belt and Road” project to legitimize his criminal activities. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry subsequently denied that Yin was a member of the CPPCC.
Australia does not currently have a law similar to the U.S. Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and can only do what it can within the existing legal framework to bring criminals to justice.
Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter has made a request for mutual assistance to the ROC government, which is believed to be a possible hiding place for Xie Zhiluo, and Australian government prosecutors have been busy gathering evidence throughout 2019.
On January 22, he was put on a flight to Canada with a stopover in the Netherlands, where he was arrested at the request of Australian police upon landing.
In 2015, Xie Zhiluo was already firmly on the radar of drug enforcement agencies around the world. At the Time, the diminutive man allegedly looked more like an accountant than an underworld leader.
Criminal organizations network with multiple governments
A 2012 briefing by the Australian Anti-Crime Commission (ACC) said that members of The Company, an organization controlled by Tse Chi Lok, had developed an extensive network of relationships with many governments and legitimate businesses, enabling them to conceal their criminal activities. The ACC was later renamed the Australian Anti-Crime Intelligence Service (ACIC).
The briefing states that The Company’s most valuable asset is its infiltration of governments and security services, and that their contacts include senior Asian government officials and their relatives, including a Chinese Communist official who has worked with Interpol.
A report released last year by the International Crisis Group (ICG) said the drug trade would not have been possible without corrupt senior officials in countries such as China, Laos and Thailand who helped move large quantities of drugs or drug precursors through those countries.
Another advantage of The Company’s organization is that it corrupts people in transportation and logistics systems in countries where drugs are highly lucrative, such as Australia, and in markets where drugs are priced high but people are still willing to pay high prices for them.
In 2019, Xie Zhiluo even obtained a highly classified Australian federal document that warned other law enforcement partners that Xie was a high-value target for police.
Last year, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Karl Kent described The Company as “a major threat to Australia” on Radio 9, and not just from drugs, but also from human trafficking and arms trafficking. He also said that the organization’s profits exceeded the gross domestic product of some countries.
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