Khun Sa

▪ 2008

Chang Chi-fu or Chufu or Shi-fu 

      Myanmar drug trafficker and militant separatist

born Feb. 17, 1934, Shan state, Burma [now Myanmar]

died Oct. 26, 2007, Yangon [Rangoon], Myanmar

was the “king of the Golden Triangle,” dominating the trade in heroin coming out of the area that straddles the borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand. The ruthless and arrogant Khun Sa (his nom de guerre) originally trained as a soldier in the Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist Army, but he broke with the official military and from 1963 operated with impunity at the head of his own militia of 10,000–20,000 men, which he claimed was dedicated to fighting for the independence of the Shan people. He was imprisoned from 1969 to 1974, but at the height of his power in the 1980s, Khun Sa was believed to have controlled at least 70% of the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle and an estimated 40–45% of the heroin entering the U.S., which resulted in the U.S. government's offering a $2 million bounty for his capture. In 1996 he surrendered to authorities and retired quietly to Yangon.

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