Word: doped
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Drug busts in Europe are mounting geometrically. So far this year, Common Market narcs have seized 440 kilos of heroin, as much as was intercepted from 1972 to 1975. By the police rule of thumb that seizures equal 10% of the traffic, Golden Triangle dope routed through Amsterdam is now rivaling the volume of the old Turkey-Marseille-New York French Connection. Many European experts see the Continent approaching the type of heroin epidemic that swept the U.S. in the 1960s...
...tapping drug laws. But the mounting flow of "horse" through the city has become a narc's nightmare. Says G.J. Toorenaar, chief of Amsterdam's criminal investigation division: "It's raining heroin in The Netherlands." Worse, Europe's swelling addict population is now getting its dope from overseas Chinese gangs that police cannot understand or penetrate...
...classic laws of narcotics economy. When the French Connection was cut in 1972, the slack in the American market was soon filled by Mexican heroin, but European addicts were temporarily strung out. At the same time, American withdrawal from Viet Nam cost Southeast Asia's Chinese Tai Los (dope bosses) their most lucrative market. According to one American narcotics expert, "It was simply natural that the twain [Asian supply and European demand] should meet...
...Dope comes to Europe in small packets borne by an "ant army" of couriers. From the lawless wilds of the Golden Triangle, dried poppy extract travels by backpack, bicycle, mule and even army trucks to crude labs, some in jungles, some in Southeast Asia's sprawling Chinatowns. There chemists refine the caky black powder into two grades of heroin: No. 3, the 40%-50% pure "brown sugar" favored for smoking, and fluffy white No. 4, 90% pure "stuff" for needle addicts. The dope is ferried to Europe by air, ingeniously cached in all sorts of objects-mah-jongg tiles...
Dodging Amsterdam's closely watched Schiphol Airport, couriers detour to Zurich, Frankfurt, Rome and other cities and then carry the dope to Holland overland. Penny-wise smugglers have even used Aeroflot's discount flights across Asia, though Soviet police crackdowns in Moscow are making that route more dangerous. Tactics change daily. "You know if we see a Chinese get off a flight from Bangkok, we're going to nail him," says one Paris-based U.S. narc. To avoid that, the triads are recruiting middle-class Caucasians as "mules" for $1,000 a trip plus plane fare...