- Francis Mao
- BBC News
image copyright Australian Federal Police
Australian police released a photo of officers escorting Tzu Chi Loop through Melbourne Airport
Australian police have extradited Asia’s first-most wanted suspected drug lord, who faces a possible life sentence.
Tse Chi Lube is accused of leading a multibillion-dollar drug operation that spans several countries in the Asia-Pacific, from Japan to New Zealand.
The man is a notorious figure, whose status in Asia has always prompted comparison with Mexican drug lord El Chapo, and he was arrested by the International Police (Interpol) last year at a Dutch airport.
After a battle that lasted nearly two years, he was finally handed over on Thursday to Australian authorities.
And the Australian police published pictures of armed officers escorting him from the plane at Melbourne Airport, handcuffed. He is scheduled to face a local court on Thursday.
The 59-year-old is alleged to be the boss of one of the world’s largest multi-billion dollar drug cartels.
The Asian drug cartel, known as Sam Gor, dominates the illegal drug market across Asia. Australian police estimate that he is responsible for up to 70 percent of the drugs arriving in Australia alone.
Police said the group smuggled huge amounts of drugs – mainly methamphetamine but also heroin and ketamine – into the country in packages of tea.
The charges brought by Australia against Tse relate to alleged operations from 2012 to 2013 in which a shipment of methamphetamine worth close to US$3 million was smuggled into the country.
A police crackdown at the time found that drug proceeds from a Melbourne home included more than A$4 million in cash, 99 expensive handbags and a yellow Lamborghini.
image copyright Australian Federal Police
The Lamborghini has been confiscated by the Australian federal authorities
image copyright Reuters
Tse Chi Lube is suspected of leading a multi-billion dollar methamphetamine operation
The scale of his alleged ventures is why Tse has been compared to Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán, better known as “El Chapo”.
Australian police have been hunting the man for more than a decade, and they say most of his drugs flowed to Sydney and Melbourne.
Tse was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in January 2021, while trying to board a plane.
Tse denied the drug charges, claimed that the Australian authorities planned his arrest, and said that the Australian police illegally arranged for him to be expelled from Taiwan to Canada, to include a stopover in the Netherlands so he could be arrested there.
The effort to arrest Tse – dubbed Operation Kongor – involved some 20 law enforcement agencies across continents, with Australian police taking the lead. It was rumored that he had been living in Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years.
The man had previously spent nine years in prison after he was arrested for drug trafficking in the United States in the 1990s.
Australian police said another man, a Briton of Chinese descent, would be tried alongside Tse as a co-defendant. The 66-year-old man from Thailand was handed over to Australian authorities last June.