01x02 - The Mekong River Pirate

[bunniefuu]

The Golden Triangle
is unquestionably

the epicenter

of illicit drug production.

It's the craziest, most lawless

most scary-a*s place

that you could ever travel to.

13 Chinese sailors k*lled.

These were not
victims of firefights.

These people had been ex*cuted.

The Mekong m*ssacre

was one the largest killings

of Chinese nationals
outside of China

since World w*r II.

The villain behind

this terrible m*ssacre

is Naw Kham

the freshwater pirate

of the Mekong River.

But catching Naw
Kham wasn't like

finding a needle in a haystack.

It was like finding a needle

in a jungle.

The Thai Kitchen

is a really nice restaurant

that overlooks the Mekong.

The kitchen is

just north of Chiang Saen.

It's a few miles away

from the Burmese border.

It's right across from Laos.

It is right there

at the Golden Triangle.

So one of the waiters
at Thai Kitchen

is in his room.

He can see upstream

two barges docked together.

Surrounded by the Pha Muang

by these uniformed policemen.

Jirasak... come in, over.

Go ahead. Over.

sh**ting incident
at Mekong River.

Roger that.

We're on our way. Over.

(Thai)

We could hear faint sounds

of a gunfight.

I was startled and confused.

Our captain heard
Yang Deyi saying

through the marine VHF radio.

"Oh no, someone's dead."

Our rescue team found two barges

docked along the
bank of the river.

There was blood around the cabin

and the walkway.

In the c*ck, we
found a dead body.

A man who was shot in the torso.

I thought that

this incident was a big deal

so I rushed to work on it

and report it.

The Pha Muang,
this drug taskforce

holds a press conference

the next morning.

The Thai authorities

received intelligence

that there would be

drug trafficking
activity going down

through the Myanmar-Laos border.

They announce that

the Pha Muang had
been positioned

in two speedboats

down river from these barges.

When they approach

they came under heavy fire.

The Pha Muang, they returned

heavy fire, these pirates

they said had gotten back

into their own dragon-tail boats

going upriver.

The Pha Muang declined
to chase them.

At the time

the Thai authorities
didn't mention

who was responsible
for the clash.

When the Pha Muang
boarded the boats

they found a million pills

six million dollars' worth of

methamphetamine, right beneath

a hundred dollars'
worth of apples.

They suspected these pills

had been shipped down

from the Mong Hsat where most of

the methamphetamine
factories are

and that they were
shipping it down

to the Kings Romans Casino.

Why would the
smugglers leave behind

six million dollars'
worth of drugs?

When I arrived at the scene

I went on the first boat.

In the control room

there were bloodstains
everywhere.

It had been sprayed
with g*nf*re.

I was confused and puzzled

about what had happened.

It was strange

because there were two boats

there shouldn't
be just one body.

Where were the other bodies?

At first, they only told us

there had been an incident

involving the two boats.

We didn't receive any calls

from the crew.

All their phones were dead.

That's when we
knew it's serious.

The crew had disappeared.

Get it with that long stick.

On the afternoon of 7th October

the bodies started surfacing.

We found the bodies

one or two at a time.

Some were stuck at

the sandbar in the river.

Their mouths were duct-taped.

One had a broken neck.

Some of the bodies were shot

in the stomach and we could see

the remnants of
the food they ate.

I'll always remember the images

of this brutal m*ssacre.

I can never forget.

We could tell from their clothes

that they were Chinese sailors.

They had surfaced

where the Chinese
boats were docked.

It's as if they knew
where to surface.

On the third day

we found many more bodies.

These were not
victims of firefights.

These people had been ex*cuted.

By the end of the
day, 13 corpses

lined the docks of Chiang Saen.

All of them would be identified

as the Chinese crew
of the two barges.

My brother's body was the first

to surface.

It felt like my
world had collapsed.

The Mekong m*ssacre

was one of the largest killings

of Chinese nationals
outside of China

since World w*r II.

The outrage was immediate

and profound.

Families of the victims

have arrived in Thailand.

The farewell ceremony
for the victims

will be held on 14 October.

The government in Beijing

wanted answers.

Why had they been blindfolded?

Why had they been k*lled

execution style?

Within a few days

the official
explanation has begun

to look pretty weak.

Nine of the Pha
Muang were arrested

in the immediate wake of this.

Now there's real
questions afoot.

Were the crew of the two barges

involved in the drug trade?

Were they victims?

Or were they co-conspirators?

Why would the Pha Muang

want them dead?

I definitely thought of it

as a m*rder mystery.

By October 10th

a new theory emerges.

The Pha Muang announce that

the villain behind

this terrible
m*ssacre is Naw Kham.

But who was Naw Kham?

And was he guilty of it at all?

Naw Kham was this
mythical figure

in this region of
the Mekong River.

Born in 1969 in Lashio

a sleepy little city

north of the Golden Triangle.

I first met Naw Kham

we were in our early twenties.

He was an ordinary Dai teenager

kind of thuggish

and had been in the military.

Naw Kham was a radio operator

with the Shan United.

Revolutionary Army.

So Naw Kham cuts his teeth

with Khun Sa

who's one of the major guerrilla

drug-running forces
at this time.

But by 1996, Khun
Sa cuts a deal.

His guerrilla force
splits into three

and 26-year-old Naw Kham

comes to lead one of them.

He's given free rein

to run the drug trafficking

in his region.

I heard he was in
charge of a troop

taking over turfs
and doing business

in the Golden Triangle.

One thing that quickly becomes

evident to China is that

catching Naw Kham is going to be

a lot more complex

than the government would like.

The Chinese come up with

a joint-security agreement

that allows the Chinese

to take the lead

in the manhunt for Naw Kham.

This taskforce

that China sent into the region

is called Operation Mekong.

They're able to send a force

of 200 law enforcement officers

with full jurisdiction

throughout the entire region

to apprehend Naw Kham.

They spread their forces

to different villages in Laos

the Golden Triangle, Mae Sai

and Tachileik.

The Golden Triangle

is part of Southeast Asia

where Myanmar, Thailand

and Laos come together

basically in a perfect triangle.

It's a very remote

mountainous, poor area

basically run by warlords.

The Golden Triangle
is unquestionably

the epicenter

of illicit drug production.

Drugs aren't just
part of society

up there. They dominate society.

Catching Naw Kham wasn't like

finding a needle in a haystack.

It was like finding a needle

in a jungle.

Tachileik is the
border frontier town.

It's got the river

cutting right through.

One side, Thailand

the other side is Myanmar.

A little town which is a nexus

for ill*gal trade and everything

from jade to endangered animals.

The convergence of
all those factors

makes Tachileik a
very dangerous area.

You can sense as
soon as you cross

that something
isn't quite right.

Naw Kham sets up
shop in Tachileik.

His entrepreneurial talents

began to come to the fore.

And he begins to gather

his own power base around him.

There is no law
enforcement force

or opposition

that he has to contend with.

And his empire begins to expand.

He was quite good
with relationships

to government officials.

Everybody likes him quite a lot.

Naw Kham was Robin Hood

to the people in the community.

Naw Kham was good
to his friends.

He provided electricity

road maintenance

and water for his village.

People who lived in the villages

controlled by Naw Kham

enjoyed good living conditions.

He was a Buddhist.

He would do only good things.

By this time, there's
a major change

in the Golden Triangle.

Methamphetamine production

really began to take off.

It essentially exploded.

Factories start to spring up

all under Naw Kham's control.

He ramps up

methamphetamine production

and finds an almost
unending demand

for whatever he can supply.

He has his own
labs and factories

built around this large compound

and Naw Kham is getting rich.

These drug dealers

were getting wealthier.

On the other hand

the addicts were suffering.

Meth, it has a
very strong effect

on people's mental function.

And in extreme cases
cause psychosis.

We had heard rumors that

he was a daily user of meth.

Naw Kham was a
drug user himself.

You could tell by
looking at him.

People get into
high-risk behaviors.

They become irrational.

Naw Kham was quite

a likable person at first.

But something went wrong.

That's how it started.

Northeast of Tachileik.

At the foot of the mountains

they have some caves there.

They used this location

for interrogation.

Stay still!

Stay still! I told
you to sit still!

Get up! Stay still!

Where do you think you're going?

He m*rder*d them

and beheaded them.

Put their heads on a stake

in the village, just
to let everybody

know that they mean business.

Naw Kham has gotten big

big enough to come to

the attention of Interpol

and the Burmese government

is beginning to receive

a lot of pressure

to rein in this guy.

Naw Kham could not stay

in Tachileik anymore.

So, he went underground

and became sort of a t*rror1st

in that area.

At this point.

Naw Kham has shifted operations.

He relocates to Sam Puu island.

He's no longer

the methamphetamine kingpin

of Tachileik.

What he is, is the tax man.

He creates this fortress

in the middle of
the Mekong River.

In the Golden Triangle

the Mekong River

is a major trade route.

It's one of the most important

trade routes in the world

for many millennia.

You have trades that often times

originating in southern China

going all the way to ports

in Thailand, Laos

and as far south as Cambodia.

And just as the Mekong

is an effective
distribution route

for garlic or apples

likewise an incredibly effective

trade route for methamphetamine.

According to our intelligence

many ships also carried drugs

at the time.

It's a trafficker's paradise

essentially.

Naw Kham and his men basically

tax river traffic

that was going down
the Mekong River.

Every shipment of drug

passing through

they have to pay tax to him.

They have to pay
protection to him.

And Sam Puu island
can't be avoided.

He's very smart, very strategic.

Naw Kham has

a hundred highly
trained soldiers

armed with grenade launchers

heavy automatic machine g*ns

sophisticated
military technology.

They emerge in speedboats

faster than anything else

on the Mekong River

to interdict with
whatever traffic

they want to.

There was a signal
that would sound

once a boat sailed
into his area.

He levies a surcharge of $160

on every kilo of heroin

and 10 cents on

every pill of methamphetamine

that come down the river.

They had no choice.

The ships had no choice.

He would sh**t up

those who refused to pay him.

So that's how he got very rich.

One of my friends in Tachileik

told me that when he visited

his place in that island

he was sleeping on the bed.

The mattress was
full of U.S. dollars.

One hundred dollars, full.

The whole mattress.

He was shocked. For sure that

he was a multi-millionaire

at that time.

Eventually, Robin Hood

pushes his luck too far.

He tried to tax not just

the drug runners

coming down the
river but everyone.

He wanted a cut of everything.

It got more frightening.

At the height of his power.

Naw Kham would stop almost

every Chinese ship
for inspection.

We thought this river

was really dangerous.

In 2009

there was an incident

in the middle of
the Mekong River.

The Burmese sent a police force

to catch him.

Five of my men started

from their base along the river

but Naw Kham's
men also knew that

this was coming on that day.

They have prior intelligence.

Naw Kham's men
fired from the bank.

I lost five men.

Two got washed into
the Mekong River.

Never got back their bodies.

I was shocked that

he would dare to do this

to the drug police.

This was the first time

that he really confronted us.

Naw Kham's attack

on the Myanmar police officers

was audacious

and he put a big bulls-eye

on his back.

Naw Kham becomes
an agent of chaos.

The fallout would come next.

13 Chinese sailors were k*lled

execution style, blindfolded

in really horrible fashion.

All eyes were on Naw Kham

the freshwater pirate.

One thing working

in the Chinese
government's favor

is that Naw Kham
can't stop working.

He's still trying to run

drug operations

while he's on the run.

This leads them to a trafficker

that actually
worked for Naw Kham.

On December 13th, with the help

of the local police in Burma

the Chinese are able

to capture this trafficker.

Under interrogation

the Chinese learn the structure

of Naw Kham's organization

and they've learned that.

Naw Kham has been living

in his mistress's house

in this small Laotian town.

Naw Kham is quite a handsome guy

and he has a lot of mistresses.

Nearly every village

he has mistresses.

So, that was the weak point

that the Chinese took.

Pretty quickly,
they staged a raid.

It was really difficult for

the authorities
to arrest Naw Kham

because the locals

loved Naw Kham so much.

They helped him by
tipping him off.

By the time they actually get to

where Naw Kham's supposed to be

he's escaped.

At this point

the government of
Beijing is coming

under increasing pressure

from its own people

to capture this guy.

The Burmese are cracking down

he's in Laos.

If the Laotian are chasing him

he's in Thailand.

And if the Thai are chasing him

he's back into Burma.

Naw Kham has become.

China's Osama bin Laden.

The breakthrough comes in April.

The Chinese learned
that Naw Kham

was planning to
cross the Mekong.

In the evening, he
happened to decide

to go home to see his mistress.

Stop! This is police!

Don't run! Stop!

Stop now!

Don't resist!

On your knees!

The hunt is over.

They've captured him alive.

This man that previously

had only existed

in blurry photographs

was now the subject

of the televised attention

of the largest
nation in the world.

I saw the news on television.

I felt very happy

that the man behind the m*ssacre

was arrested.

They made a big
show of his arrest

to demonstrate China's power.

He is public enemy number one

in China, the top news story

throughout the country.

It wasn't until
Naw Kham's arrest

that we knew what
he looked like.

Looking at Naw Kham

his eyes were dark
and unfathomable.

The eyes of a k*ller.

On September 18th

Chinese state television

gets access to Naw Kham

and conducts an
interview with him.

Why did you pick Chinese boats

as your target?

On 22nd September 2011

Burmese soldiers came

and shot my people

who live in the lower region.

Four died and four were injured.

We were angry

and decided to get revenge.

I was free that day

so I went to Kunming

to attend the court trial.

We told them that

we were families of the victims

and each family was given

a few passes to
enter the courtroom.

Summon the defendants.

Naw Kham, Hsang Kham.

My brother's wife
went to the trial.

We wanted to see Naw Kham

sentenced to death.

We were split up by the staff.

We couldn't sit together.

Just in case we
got too emotional

and lose control.

Yi Lai, Zha Xika, Zha Bo.

Zha Tuobo to the court.

And now we see.

Naw Kham being brought in.

The trial of Naw Kham

and his deputies begins.

This is must-see TV.

We believe that the evidence

presented by the prosecution

as well as the evidence gathered

during police investigation

will bring us
closer to the truth

of the Mekong m*ssacre.

Public Prosecutor,
please read out

the revised indictment.

Indictment of

the people's procuratorate of.

Kunming city, Yunnan
province, China.

Defendant: Naw Kham, male.

Born on 8 November 1969.

Shan ethnicity.

ID card number: MYI.

On 5 October 2011

did you commit the criminal acts

of hijacking two Chinese barges

murdering the Chinese crew and

planting drugs on
the Chinese barges?

I didn't know about it.

They did it all by themselves.

I only found out
about the attack

after it occurred.

Naw Kham denied everything.

As you can imagine

the family members
were very upset.

It didn't happen like that.

But what has happened,
has happened.

The mistake has
already been made.

But my subordinates

were the ones responsible.

So I am here

to plead with the
Chinese government

to penalize me with a fine.

A heavy fine.

All of us wanted.

Naw Kham to pay with his life.

The widow of Qiu Jiahai

an engine department crew

from the barge Hua Ping

said something that
I'll never forget.

She said, "I just want to know"

"if my husband said anything"

"before he died."

Well...

How should I put it?

I don't have the words for it.

There are no words for it.

Till now, we still don't know

what happened

and why the 13 Chinese crew

were k*lled.

I don't think

that Naw Kham is the m*rder*r

because the incident
didn't occur

in his area.

What reason would he have

for doing that?

I'm not 100% convinced
that Naw Kham

would be bold enough to do this.

I'd say drugs were

the main cause of this tragedy.

Naw Kham was using drugs

and ordered the m*ssacre

in his drug-addled state.

I still think that Naw Kham

might be right in saying that

he wasn't involved
in the killings.

But these killings

could not have been done

without his knowledge.

At least

he must have known
what happened.

By 5.30pm the next evening

the trial's over.

Naw Kham has reported

to have pled guilty.

Interestingly

that's the one part of the trial

that was not televised live.

Bailiffs

take the following
people, Naw Kham...

The prosecution

for the Chinese government

had promised
overwhelming evidence.

Yet they couldn't
even place Naw Kham

at the scene of
the actual crime.

There's no question that.

Naw Kham was a bad dude.

To wield power in
the Golden Triangle

you had to be.

I don't doubt that

he had personally k*lled people.

But why would he
have accompanied

these Chinese boat crews

all the way down

into the middle of Chiang Saen

well outside of his territory

and then k*lled them

in broad daylight?

It doesn't make any sense.

The sentence is as follows.

All rise, please.

For committing
voluntary manslaughter

the defendant Naw Kham is hereby

sentenced to death.

For committing kidnapping

the defendant Naw Kham is hereby

sentenced to life imprisonment.

Naw Kham was sentenced to death

by lethal injection.

The Chinese had given him

a final statement.

I hope my children

don't end up like me.

I hope they get a good education

get a proper job

and live their lives.

Don't end up like me.

The two screens in the middle

are showing the
real-time monitoring

of Naw Kham in
solitary confinement.

After receiving
the death sentence.

Naw Kham and his
three conspirators

are very nervous and fearful.

Their desire to live is strong.

There is about 20 minutes to go

before the procedure.

Naw Kham knows he's nearing

the last moments of his life.

The final shot of the feed

is Naw Kham sitting peacefully

his arms at his sides.

When Naw Kham was ex*cuted

no, I didn't feel anything.

He's just another criminal.

You reap what you sow.

I think it was his time to go.

Karma dictates everything.

We all have to let go.

I'm not going to comment on

whether he deserved to die.

The family members
of the k*lled crew

most certainly hate
him to the core

and he has paid
for what he's done.

Time will handle the rest.

When Naw Kham was
ex*cuted in China

the situation didn't
change here much

on the border area.

You take out someone

and someone else replaces them.

Someone fills the void.

What we're worried about is

another super group coming in.

We've seen over decades.

One drug trafficker goes

another comes in.

It's never been a better time

to be a drug trafficker

in the Golden Triangle.