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Operation Tiger Trap (1994)
Operation Tiger Trap was conceived at DEA’s Bangkok
Office during June of 1994 with the goal of identifying and
targeting the major heroin traffickers in the region. Operation
Tiger Trap was the first of its kind, a multi-agency international
operation designed to dismantle or disrupt the trafficking
activities of the world’s largest heroin trafficking organization,
the Shan United Army (SUA). Also known as the Mong
Tai Army, it was located primarily in the areas of Burma
adjacent to the northern border provinces of Thailand. The
SUA Warlord Khun Sa claimed that his army, which was
financed primarily through heroin trafficking, was fighting the
Burmese for the independence for the Shan people.
The SUA controlled the cultivation, production, and transportation
of heroin from the Shan State. Although other
insurgent groups in Burma also trafficked heroin, the SUA had
been the dominant force in worldwide distribution. Prior to
Operation Tiger Trap, the percentage of southeast Asian
heroin from the DEA’s Heroin Signature Program rose from 9
percent in 1977 to 58 percent in 1991.
Tiger Trap was divided into phases which would all target key
Shan United Army (SUA) functionaries. On November 27,
1994, the operation culminated when teams of Royal Thai
Police, Office of Narcotics Control Board Officers, and Royal
Thai Army Special Forces Soldiers working with DEA agents
lured targets in Burma into Thailand where they were then
arrested. This action significantly damaged the ability of the
SUA to distribute heroin. The Royal Thai Army then worked
with the Thai Border Patrol Police to close the Burma border
to “commercial quantities” of goods entering the Shan State.
When law enforcement authorities had completed their operations,
13 senior SUA traffickers were arrested, and all were
pursued for extradition/expulsion to the United States. These
13 principal defendants in Operation Tiger Trap included
some of the most persistent and high-level heroin traffickers
operating out of Thailand. They were all subjects of U.S.
indictments in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY). The
defendants were a mixture of three distinct categories: those
who were eligible for expulsion (illegal aliens in Thailand);
those who possessed fraudulent identification; and authentic
Thai citizens.
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Operation Tiger Trap toppled SUA Warlord and heroin
trafficker Khun Sa.
On December 3, 1993, law enforcement authorities seize
315 kilos of heroin in Pae, Thailand.
Khun Sa’s men. From left to right, Chang Tetsa, Liu
Fangte, Meedian Pathummee, Kuo Fa Mou, Ma Tsai Kuei,
Chao Fusheng.