Southeast Asia’s Drug Networks

Southeast Asia’s economy is booming, increasing every year by 5%, and is expected to continue to grow due to an expanding consumer market, a young workforce and increasing regional cooperation. However, these are not the only markets experiencing the boom, the regions illicit markets are also enjoying a surge.

Drug labs in Southeast Asia are releasing two to six billion methamphetamine tablets a year into the black market, NPR reports this is more tablets than cups of coffee sold by Starbucks, a lot of these tablets go into China and Thailand, with more finding their way to Bangladesh each year. As a result, seizures of meth tablets have gone up in the last 10 years in Bangladesh by 80,000 percent.

China not only receives large quantities of drugs to be sold on the streets, it also produces them. As China is soon set to become the world’s largest economy it now has plenty of people who can afford the products. So the drug lords and dealers are moving towards this market. This means that drug cartels don’t have to go further afield to sell their drugs.

China’s “One Belt One Road” plan has also enabled the easier trafficking of drugs. The plan is to connect the world with highways, ports, airports, and train lines to allow commerce to move to and from China easily. This connected infrastructure has made it easier for smugglers to move their products from A to B.

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