Tse Chi Lop extradited to Australia

• Tse Chi Lop is an alleged methamphetamine kingpin.
• He was extradited to Australia.
• He fought for two years with Dutch police..

Tse Chi Lop, an alleged methamphetamine kingpin, was extradited to Australia after a two-year legal fight with Dutch police.

Tse, 59, was arrested at Schipol International Airport in Amsterdam in January 2021. Dutch investigators apprehended him on a warrant from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) issued in 2019 in connection with a drug-trafficking operation targeting Sam Gor.

Tse’s lawyers have disputed all accusations made by Australian authorities.

Tse came Thursday and was charged soon after.

Tse, a Chinese-Canadian dual national, stopped appealing extradition in November, his lawyer said. Tse’s lawyers contended he was illegally moved to the Netherlands, where extradition laws are more favorable, to keep him in jail as long as possible.

Andre Seebregts, one of Tse’s attorneys, stated his client was deported to Canada against his will and in contravention of Taiwanese law unless he agreed differently. CNN’s Seebregts said there was a direct flight to Canada less than an hour before Tse’s departure.

Australian police didn’t comment.

Sam Gor, aka “The Company,” is supposedly Asia’s greatest methamphetamine dealer.

An official with intimate knowledge of the inquiry told CNN that the syndicate earned $8 billion to $17.7 billion in unlawful revenues in 2018.

The organization is accused of conducting a synthetic drug production empire in Myanmar’s under-policed jungles, an area devastated by civil war and still under the authority of warlords and militias, making it easy to hide industrial-scale drug manufacturing operations from law enforcement.

Tse controlled his multibillion-dollar organization from Hong Kong, Macao, and southeast Asia. His existence was unknown until a 2019 Reuters report called him “Asia’s El Chapo.”

His arrest hasn’t stopped drug trafficking in Southeast Asia. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 1 billion meth pills were seized in 2021, and drug costs remain low.

Tse has faced drug charges. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to bring heroin into the U.S. In 2006, he was released and moved to Hong Kong.

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