Opinion: How Myanmar Became Global Crime Capital |
If the Netherlands boasts of its tulip flowers, spread out in the renowned Keukenhof Gardens (32-35 hectares/79 acres), India boasts of tulips in Kashmir, carpeting over 30 hectares (74.1316 acres), then Myanmar can also boast of its opium poppies, expansively rolling over 53,100 hectares (131,212 acres). Myanmar is a sea of poppies, unparalleled anywhere else in the world!
But there is no tourism board, tour operators, or tours to advertise the beauty of the expanse of opium poppies. If Europeans can aggressively market conducted tours of Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and the Gestapo museum, why not the beautiful expanse of poppies by Myanmar?
The Myanmar Opium Survey 2025, issued Wednesday by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, found the area where opium is cultivated expanded by 17% from 2024 to 53,100 hectares (131,212 acres), the largest area since 2015.
UNODC also has described Myanmar as the largest methamphetamine producer in the world. Meth is easier to make on an industrial scale than labour-intensive opium and is distributed as tablets and crystal meth by land, sea, and air around Asia and the Pacific.
A key driver of Myanmar’s production growth has been surging opium prices. Fresh opium now fetches about $329 per kilogram, more than double the 2019 price of $145. The opium economy in Myanmar is worth about $641 million to $1.05 billion, which is roughly 0.9% to 1.4% of the country’s 2024 GDP, the report said.
North-eastern Myanmar is part of the formidable ‘Golden Triangle’, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand meet. The production of opium and heroin historically flourished there, largely because of lawlessness in border areas where Myanmar’s central government exercises hardly any control over various ethnic minority militias, many of them active partners in the drug trade.
Myanmar’s opium trade is dominated by various armed groups, including ethnic militias, insurgent organisations, military factions, and transnational organised crime groups (triads), rather than a single entity. The unstable political situation and ongoing conflict, particularly in the Shan State, have allowed these groups to flourish, making Myanmar the world’s leading source of illicit opium.
Myanmar has emerged as a hotspot for drugs, cybercrime, and human trafficking schemes. The New York Times describes it as the “Global Crime Capital," a magnet for criminal syndicates, particularly from China. Myanmar has been made into “the world’s largest hub of organised crime", with an Organised Crime Index of 8.15 in 2023, the worst out of 193 countries. The intersection of organised fraud, human trafficking, and technology-driven crime has transformed Myanmar into a crime capital.
Opium smuggling from Myanmar into India’s Northeast is a major security concern, driven by the Golden Triangle’s massive drug production (especially meth), porous borders, and high profits, with groups like the Arakan Army and Kuki-Chin insurgents often involved in trafficking.........