Tse Chi Lop

The alleged drug lord is accused of running one of the world's biggest drug syndicates.

The effort to arrest Mr Tse, Operation Kungur, involved about 20 agencies across continents with Australian police taking the lead. Mr Tse has denied the drug charges. Australian police estimate it's responsible for up to 70% of the drugs coming into Australia alone. He has claimed that his arrest was set up by Australian authorities, and argued that Australian police had illegally arranged for his expulsion from Taiwan to Canada to include a stop in the Netherlands so that he could be arrested there. The scale of his alleged enterprises is why Mr Tse has been compared to the Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The 59-year-old is alleged to be the head of one of the world's biggest multibillion-dollar drug syndicates.

The extradition of an accused Asian mafia boss has been hailed as a major victory as the smartly dressed man faced court in Melbourne.

Armed police lined the street outside Melbourne Magistrates’ Court as Mr Tse left the building in an armoured transport vehicle. The court was told that Mr Tse is the co-accused of Chinese-British national, Chung Chak Lee, 66, who was extradited to Australia earlier this year. He required the assistance of an interpreter who narrated the proceedings in Cantonese as the court was told he arrived in Australia from the Netherlands earlier the same day.

Dutch authorities then detained him on a warrant from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) issued in 2019 in connection with an operation targeting Sam Gor, the ...

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import heroin into the United States and was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2000. He was released in 2006 and returned to Canada before moving to Hong Kong. Dutch authorities then detained him on a warrant from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) issued in 2019 in connection with an operation targeting Sam Gor, the drug-trafficking syndicate he is accused of heading. His arrest, however, has not stopped the massive flow of drugs in Southeast Asia. Seebregts told CNN that there was a direct flight to Canada less than an hour before Tse’s plane took off at about 1 a.m. Tse allegedly ran his multibillion dollar operation from Hong Kong, Macao and southeast Asia.