"The Eagle Has Landed!" That might have been the sort of message sent between law enforcement agencies
around the world when this man stepped off the plane, in handcuffs and surrounded by cops. That
would be the big-time mood for seeing this man in custody to face trial; a man accused of being
the head of a vast multinational, multi-billion dollar drug syndicate, perhaps the most prolific
in history. He's been called a kingpin of global stature; a drug baron who the United
Nations compared to some of the biggest in underworld history: El Chapo and Pablo Escobar
with the UN guesstimated revenue of perhaps 18 billion dollars a year. That can buy a lot of
favors. Even his designer comfy tracksuit says "BOSS." The Mob Reporter here with big news on an
important story, a milestone event in the life of an intriguing and beguiling figure who, until his
arrest, was perhaps the most important organized crime figure most people had never heard of
Let me tell you about it. On Dec. 22, 2022, Tse Chi Lop, 59, a Chinese national with Canadian
citizenship finally arrived in Australia after fighting furiously to avoid his extradition from
the Netherlands. It doesn't look like his time in a Dutch prison has been particularly kind to him
We don't get a decent peek at what his face looks like now, but we see he looks a bit gaunt and his
hair has turned significantly gray during the 698 days since its arrest. This is what he looked
like before he became known as one of the most wanted and hunted men on the planet: Lush black
hair, fit and full-faced. This is the last time we saw him, also at an airport. This is video of
his arrest on January 22nd, 2021. It's exclusive to The Mob Reporter, at least it was at the time
He was stopped at Schiphol International Airport in Amsterdam after a flight from Taiwan. He went down
in that pinch the same way he arrived in Australia — seemingly calm and collected. This is no hot-headed
drug lord. And that's what is to be expected of a man accused of having governments, businesses, and
gangsters across the world all in his pocket. His alleged organization was called The Company, or the
Sam Gore Syndicate, which is Cantonese for "Brother Number Three." That is one of Tse's nicknames. Their
cash cow is methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs — an absolute tidal wave of them. Sam Gore is said to
be the world's biggest player through the entire Asia-Pacific region, potentially the largest market
on Earth. It was mostly made on an industrial scale in Asia's Golden Triangle. Parts of the Golden
Triangle are as close to no-man's land as there is, featuring remote borderland where Thailand, Laos
Myanmar — also known as Burma — all meet. Myanmar's Shan State, particularly, includes almost lawless areas
protected by warlords and private armies. What better place could there be to hide mega labs
Tse was considered a big fish almost anywhere in the world, from Taiwan and China, across Asia
to the Middle East, down through Australia and New Zealand, through Europe and Britain, and into
North America. Individual seizures attributed to the Sam Gore Syndicate are next-level large
In Indonesia, for example, 1.6 tons of meth; in Australia, 1.3 tons of meth; in Malaysia, 2.1 tons
of myth; others in Japan, New Zealand, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and on and on it goes. But he
was wanted most desperately in Australia, where his network is suspected of more than a decade's
worth of importation, responsible for up to 70 percent of the drug entering the country. Tse
has denied the allegations against him. Tse Chi Lop was born in Guangzhou, China, and hooked up with an
organized crime group there, known in English as the Big Circle Boys. He immigrated to Canada with
his fiancee in 1988, at the age of 25. The two married there a year later and had two children
Tse was first pinned to the international drug trade in Canada in the early 1990s during a probe
of Toronto-based members of the Italian Mafia. That old cross-border probe became a sprawling
mosaic of crime groups working cooperatively: Mafia members in Toronto, Montreal, and New York City; the
'Ndrangheta Mafia in Italy; cartels in Colombia; the Big Circle Boys both in Toronto and Asia. Tse
was eventually arrested, sent to Brooklyn for trial, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import heroin into
the United States, and was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was released from prison in 2006 and
returned to Canada. The Sam Gore Network rose from those ashes and grew further and faster than the
old school mafiosi likely thought possible. Tse, investigators allege, brought together an alliance
of five of Asia's Triad crime groups. He is said to be a master of production, logistics, corruption
diplomacy, and finance. Tse's lawyer said his arrest in Amsterdam was a dirty trick pulled on
him in a government conspiracy. Tse was forced to leave Taiwan and should have been flown directly
to the country of his passport, where his family lives, which is Canada. Instead of putting Tse on
a direct midnight flight to Canada, they waited an hour to put him on a different flight, against
his will, that connected in Amsterdam, where the Dutch extradition system is more favorable, his
lawyer argued at Tse's heavily guarded court hearings. Dutch law allows someone extradited
from their country to be charged with additional crimes once they arrive. I wouldn't be surprised
if it was arranged that way, but it might well be the pot calling the kettle black. You see, Tse is
alleged to be a boss at bending borders to suit his needs, but now the borders bent back on him
So here he is, in Australia, the centerpiece of an investigation and prosecution like no other
Tse will not face court alone, though. In June Tse's alleged right-hand man, 66-year-old Chung Chak Lee
a dual Chinese-British citizen, was extradited from Thailand and also brought to Melbourne, Australia
This is Lee's arrival shown here. He's wearing an Armani shirt and Balenciaga glasses. Lee is accused
of being a senior criminal associate of Tse's and part of the same investigation into the Sam Gore
Syndicate. Lee was arrested at a Bangkok apartment in October 2020, so it took 20 months to extradite
him to Melbourne. But after nearly a decade of chasing him, that might have not seemed so bad for
investigators. Tse now is the 10th person arrested in Australia in connection to the network. Several
have been convicted in recent years. He appeared in court briefly on charges of conspiracy to
traffic commercial quantities of controlled drugs. That could lead to a life sentence. It should be
a fascinating trial. The problem for police, of course, is that few complex organizations fall
apart overnight — even if it loses its number one and number two. Realists on the ground know
this. Jeremy Douglas, regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime told me that Tse's extradition is certainly an important moment
and the Australian-led investigation to stop him, combining about 20 International agencies, will be
near impossible to repeat. But while Sam Gore's operations were damaged by the arrests, Douglas
said, it is still active, still producing, and still trafficking. The evidence for that is indisputable
Since Tse's arrest, importations and seizures continue to climb. Please
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