Drugs, scams and sin: Myanmar’s war has made it the global crime capital

Opium is harvested from poppies in Bang Laem Village, Shan State, Myanmar. | ADAM DEAN photo

by HANNAH BEECH
December 31, 2024

The flower fields stretch out from the mountain village along most every road — fluttering patchworks of white and pink and purple.

The beauty in this corner of Shan state, in northeastern Myanmar, might seem a respite from the country’s brutal civil war. Instead the blooms are a symptom: It is all opium poppy in these fields, and Myanmar again ranks as the world’s biggest exporter of the raw material to make heroin and other opiates. And that’s just the beginning.

Since descending into a full-blown civil conflict nearly four years ago, after the military overthrew the elected government, Myanmar has cemented its status as a hotbed of transnational crime. It is a playground for warlords, arms dealers, human traffickers, poachers, drug syndicates and generals wanted by international courts.