Drug warlord shot dead

Press, 14 February 1983, Page 1

Drug warlord shot dead

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok The Thai police have confirmed that a man killed near the Burmese frontier on Friday was the notorious opium warlord, Lao Su. Lao Su, who had a $63,000 price on his head after escaping from police custody in Bangkok in 1977, was one of two men shot dead in the jungle by Thai border patrol police acting on a tip. The police in the northern city of Chiang Mai said yesterday that one of the men’s fingerprints matched those of Lao Su, who was sentenced to death in his absence six years ago for drug trafficking. They said that Lao Su, an ethnic Chinese, had crossed into the Thai part of the opium-growing “golden triangle” which links Burma, Laos, and Thailand to visit his concubines during the Chinese New Year and was killed in an exchange of gunfire between his followers and police. Thai narcotics control officials said Lao Su ran

several heroin refineries just across the border in Burma. Lao Su was a rival of the golden triangle's heroin boss. Chang Chee-Fu, also known as Khun Sa, whose Shan United Army dominates the lucrative trade in opium, morphine, and heroin. Until the late 1970 s he moved fairly freely between Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and the rugged Burmese border where rival drug-running gangs fought for control of the trade. He was arrested in August, 1977, after 144 kg of heroin, morphine, and opium were found in a house in Bangkok's suburbs. After complaining of earache he was taken under guard to a Bangkok Hospital where he escaped under circumstances still not officially explained. Two of his accomplices were sentenced to death and executed within days of his escape under emergency regulations introduced after a military coup in October, 1976.