The Dark Art

by Edward Follis

  I never liked to go outside the DEA fraternity to build a case, but sometimes it was necessary. I asked some of our American intel guys stationed in Thailand to begin monitoring Muy Hein San Tai.

  Then, with a crew of our intelligence agents, we laid out an elaborate black ops plan. We had full authorization from the Thai authorities. They gave us the green light—every action we took was justified and approved under the Thai legal code—to enter his house by stealth.

  As you’d imagine of one of Southeast Asia’s leading heroin kingpins, Muy Hein San Tai lived in a highly secure house. It was no palace, but it was a large and comfortable house by southern Thai standards.

  I quickly assessed that the main obstacles to entry were canines. He didn’t have trained Dobermans or German shepherds on his property. He didn’t need them. His protective ring was a pack of approximately twenty-five mangy dogs in the alley, constantly moving, ferreting, and sniffing around his house. He didn’t own them, but he allowed them to live on the entrance to his property, and fed them minimally—just enough that they weren’t literally starving to death. They were always near ravenous.

  Buddhists believe in reincarnation: They don’t kill dogs or monkeys—don’t even kill any animals they regard as pests—for fear that they may be murdering a reincarnated relative.

  We needed to get past those mangy dogs somehow to gain entry to the house in order to monitor the kingpin’s movements. The spooks got wind that he was leaving unexpectedly to meet his feen nit noy—one of his secondary mistresses.

  Muy Hein San Tai was a careful man in all things business-related, but he had one Achilles’ heel: womanizing.

  To maneuver through the alleyway full of mangy dogs took some thinking. The other flanks all had concrete walls topped off by razor concertina wire. We spent hours strategizing how to create a diversion to draw the dogs to one side long enough for me to gain entry over the fence and make a clean opening in the concertina wire. At that point our intel guys could join me. One of the two spooks was an expert locksmith; the other was a technical surveillance agent. As climbers go, they were both a bit clumsy, but they managed to make it over the wall once I cleared the wire away.

  The locksmith showed his true expertise. With a few flicks and twirls of his tools, he got us in through the front door in a matter of seconds. I stayed outside—entry into the domicile wasn’t my job. I stayed out in the darkness, pulling security watch, making sure no one could sneak up on us.

  Meanwhile, inside, the technicians took out a table—they snapped a few photos of it for their own purposes, then dragged it out in the yard. Again, they were masterful. The tech guy pulled out a battery-powered drill and made a clean hole up through one of the table legs. He then installed a tiny thin transmitter and closed up the hole with seamless wood putty. The leg wouldn’t have passed inspection by a trained expert, but how many people really look closely at the legs of their furniture on a daily basis?

  They carried the table back inside, readjusted everything so that it looked normal, then ran a beta test, just to make sure the battery-operated device was transmitting.

  “Good to go.”

  With a bit of a fireman’s boost, I helped them back over the concrete wall, then climbed back over myself. The tricky part was repairing the concertina wire. That took a bit of skill so I didn’t cut the hell out of my fingers.

  We scampered off. I drove away in my G-ride Honda, and our Thai cop counterparts met us at a prearranged rendezvous point.

  • • •

  From that point forward, over the following few months, we let the transmitter in the table leg do its job.

  Muy Hein San Tai was smart and street-savvy, but even the untouchables always make mistakes—again, it was all due to a connection to one of those mistresses. He left his house to pick up one of his girlfriends and then got on a fishing boat that had originated in Burma and was transporting a major amount of heroin. The transmitter gave up all the details, and the Thai cops acted with unbelievable speed.

  They stopped the boat, seized the heroin, and had Muy Hein San Tai in shackles.

  There’s no gray area legally: The penalty for heroin trafficking in Thailand is death. Muy Hein San Tai was convicted at trial and summarily executed.

  • • •

  As for Mike’s and my own work, the breakthrough against the Shan United Army came after hours and hours of dogged pursuit and negotiations. In all our negotiations Mike was always the alpha dog while I was the beta. Mike played it hard—regardless of the danger—ready to step up and put his ass on the line. My Thai language skills were better, so I was a bit more laid-back, the “talker” in our partnership.

  By the summer of 1993, Mike connected me with a character named Lee Shing Yong, a tall, thirty-year-old Chinese heroin smuggler, and we were negotiating a deal for a hundred units of SUA heroin. We first met in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in Bangkok. Perhaps it was my conversational Thai skills, but Lee was surprisingly friendly with me, opening up about his childhood in the Yunnan Province of China. His relaxed body language was a good sign; these cagey SUA traffickers were finally beginning to trust Mike and me.

  My Thai was now nearly flawless—Mike told me it was almost as good as Ben Yarborough’s—but it was the distinctive Songkhla accent that paid off big-time. Lee truly thought I was from the south, which meant I was based eight hundred miles away from his stronghold, not anywhere near SUA territory. That sense of distance gave yet another level of reassurance.

  By this time, Lee and his entire circle had all heard rumors about me.

  “Khun pen pii?” he asked. Are you the Ghost?

  I laughed. “Some say that—yeah.”

  Lee insisted that the heroin-for-cash exchange take place near a SUA-held village in the jungle. I nodded, told him in Thai that I couldn’t make any promises but that I’d bring the request to my business partner, Mike, who was down conducting business in Songkhla. Lee emphasized the quality and bargain price of the heroin, and then suddenly conceded to possibly making the exchange in southern Thailand, near Songkhla, as long as we’d agree to pay for half the shipment up front before delivery.

  I played it nonchalant, noncommittal, always the best bet in negotiations.

  “Look, it sounds possible,” I said. “I’ll ask—but I don’t know if we should even bother dealing with you guys.”

  It was mostly a bluff—of course I wanted to consummate the deal—but I was trying to let Lee know that Mike and I had other options, knew other smugglers, had no problems taking our money elsewhere. Lee looked down at the tabletop, frowning. We agreed to talk later after we’d both consulted with our people, and exchanged cell phone numbers.

  • • •

  More than a month went by before Mike’s cell phone rang. It was Lee again. He asked for a face-to-face meet. On the afternoon of August 27, we met in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Bangkok. But Lee had now backtracked—typical heroin-trafficking gamesmanship—and wanted us to do the deal in the highland jungles of the far north. We refused adamantly. Frustrated, Lee played his trump card.

  “You don’t understand what I’m offering you,” he said. “It’s the best number four heroin on the market.”

  Heroin—chemically known as diacetylmorphine—comes in a variety of forms. Heroin number three is a base—not yet brought to pure refinement. It has a lower burning temperature than number four, so it can be easily smoked. But it’s not water-soluble and cannot be shot up. Heroin number three was popular with smokers in the Golden Triangle.

  Heroin number four is water-soluble, can be cooked in a spoon and shot up intravenously. From a drug trafficker’s standpoint, heroin number four is the best, most potent product. And the Shan United Army’s heroin number four was even stamped with a trademark—the Double UO Globe Brand—and known as the premier “Cadillac” of smack worldwide.

  “Yes, it’s the
top number four in the world,” Lee repeated. “And it comes directly from Mr. Chang.”

  Mr. Chang? Mike and I glanced at each other, trying not to betray our amazement. “Mr. Chang” was the common street euphemism for Chang Chi Fu—Khun Sa himself.

  Mike had been in Thailand years longer than me, and had never, in all his hundreds of dealings with smugglers and traffickers, got an admission that the heroin shipment was coming straight from the infamous chain-smoking Opium Warlord.

  • • •

  Weeks passed, and the negotiations had come to an impasse. Typical of smack deals everywhere. I was in a hotel room in Bangkok trying to jump-start the negotiations with Lee. My girl Gay came along and was staying with me in the hotel. It wasn’t exactly a fleabag, but it was no five-star palace either.

  Working undercover, I always stayed under the radar, maintained a small footprint. I would never stay in the posh parts of the city, and never near the really high-crime districts. I’d find a place that was nondescript, near a bunch of commercial activity.

  I was using the cell to call Lee up north in Chiang Mai. He now claimed his people were willing to sell us one hundred units—or seventy kilos. (Each unit consisted of seven hundred grams of heroin.)

  “Phom ja pai yim khun,” I said. Okay, then, I’m going to come visit you.

  “Maa rew mak,” he said. Come quickly.

  I spoke to him for a good twenty minutes in Thai, putting together the details of a meeting. Mike and I needed to book flights on Thai Airways from Bangkok to the city of Chiang Mai in the north.

  After the call ended, I set down the cell phone, and Gay stared at me in silence.

  I’ll never forget the look—the penetrating force of Gay’s jet-black eyes—as we were standing by the window.

  Below us: the incessant noise of the taxis and tuk-tuks.

  “Khun Ed,” she said softly, hugging me. It’s a quite formal way to speak, but in Thailand a woman refers to a man—even her husband or boyfriend—as “Mister.” Even though Gay was both my lover and my trusted Thai friend, she always added that honorific when we spoke. Etiquette is so crucial in Thai culture.

  She laughed quietly. There was a long silence, broken only by the squealing of the tuk-tuks below us in the crowded street.

  “Khun Ed,” she said, “when I listen to you speak, I wouldn’t even know you were white. I know you’ve got them.”

  • • •

  I quickly got back on the cell phone and called Mike down in Songkhla.

  “Better get up here, brother,” I said. “We’re on for the meet up north.”

  Bansmer jumped on a plane and was with me in Bangkok that same afternoon.

  Because we’d institutionalized our presence with the Thai police, we were now allowed to carry our firearms—had even been issued official permits—on commercial jet airliners. You think the United States would ever allow foreign cops to carry guns in our country on planes? That kind of interagency and international cooperation is unfathomable here.

  I would carry my .38 Smith & Wesson snub-nose. As usual, Mike arrived with his Beretta Model 92 with the ported barrel.

  • • •

  There was still considerable work to be done in the negotiations once we got to the north of Thailand. On September 16, 1993, Lee asked us to meet him in the Orchid Hotel coffee shop in Chiang Mai. But when Mike and I walked in, we didn’t see the familiar smiling face of Lee—it was some other guy, who turned out to be Lee’s older brother Phong, already known to us as one of the most powerful heroin traffickers in Khun Sa’s organization.

  Phong was in his midforties, thick black hair, sinewy muscles, constant hard expression. Clearly not a guy to be toyed with. But, Mike whispered to me, he could already spot the guy’s weakness: There was naked greed in Phong’s eyes. He wanted this deal to happen badly—too badly.

  We sat down, ordered drinks, and began to talk. Bansmer immediately began working Phong, growing angry at times over this incessant demand that we go up into the mountains to make the heroin exchange and that we put 50 percent of the money up front. Every time Phong insisted that we travel alone into Shan United Army territory, Mike looked like he was ready to blow his stack.

  There was no safe way for Mike and me to go off into the jungle north of Chiang Mai; without a large contingent of Thai border patrol, we’d be inviting an ambush and almost certain death. The DEA would never allow half our cash—$180,000 in US dollars—to fall into the hands of the SUA.

  The negotiations ping-ponged for more than an hour—tense one moment, then relaxed, then even tenser. But Mike never relinquished control of the room. I watched, impressed, as Bansmer used his fluctuating anger the way a matador waves a cape. He moved in and out during the negotiations, arguing that our New York Mob backers did not want to risk losing the money in the jungle. He insisted the entire transfer be done right here in Chiang Mai.

  Phong sat stone-faced, adamant in his refusal. We were at loggerheads. Whenever they reached an impasse, they’d sit silently for a moment, sipping their drinks. I’d hear Mike’s heavy, frustrated exhalations. I’d try to use my Thai language skills as a mediator. Each man was proud, willful, and had his own reasons for not walking away; after a couple of minutes, one of them would find another angle, another reason to keep the discussions alive.

  “Let’s be honest, confidence has been lost on both sides,” Mike said finally in Thai. Phong nodded, looking plenty pissed off.

  “You sound like a cop,” he said with a sneer.

  “How about this?” Mike said. “Let’s do a deal—it can be a small one, and maybe we can restore that confidence.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Say we buy two units now. If that goes through without a hitch, we can talk to our people in New York about buying the rest of the hundred units.”

  “I don’t like the sound of it.”

  Mike pressed forward. “Just get the two units and bring it here.”

  Phong drew back, looking insulted, then finally agreed.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll call you in a few hours when I have it.”

  We shook on the deal, and Phong split.

  As he exited the hotel, Bansmer blew out a hot exhale and sat down.

  I could see that Mike was pissed off. Two units—1.4 kilograms of smack for $7,000—was not a big bust, certainly not the hundred units we’d been angling for. Still, I reassured Bansmer, a two-unit deal was big enough. Phong could get the death penalty for selling that quantity of heroin. Mike nodded, knowing a looming death sentence would give us more than enough leverage once we had Phong in cuffs.

  Eight hours later, at nine p.m., Phong called Mike’s cell and told him he was in the lobby of the Phucome Hotel, about a twenty-minute drive away. Nothing to be too alarmed about: That was typical for Thai drug deals—switching up the meeting place at the last moment. Mike and I quickly drove over to the Phucome Hotel.

  Phong was there with his assistant as backup. But now Phong tried to move the goalposts again, saying we needed to drive to one of his cousins’ houses, where we could make the two-unit deal.

  Mike and I looked at Phong with contempt. Mike’s face went bright red, and he laughed aloud. Switching up hotels was one thing, but we weren’t going to go to some unknown house where they could possibly whack us.

  Mike insisted that Phong go get the smack and then meet us in the lobby. This is what made Mike such a great undercover negotiator—he never wavered on matters of security, and he always maintained his position of power and control. Phong agreed, and I handed him my empty gray backpack for the heroin.

  Nearly two hours later, Phong and his assistant returned. They greeted us in the lobby, and Phong handed me back the now dope-laden backpack.

  I took it outside to our car and tested the heroin with my Marquis reagent kit. When I came back into the lobby, I nodded t
o Mike—definitely heroin number four, and nearly pure. Mike told me it was now cool to get the money. I went back to the car and got a plastic bag. Bansmer took an envelope from the bag and handed it to Phong, who opened it, studied the $7,000 cash intently for a few moments, and then nodded.

  “We can now all trust each other,” Phong said, finally.

  Mike and I smiled back.

  Phong now let his guard down and explained the intricacies of how a significant heroin deal worked within the Shan United Army. A broker had to travel deep into the jungle, crossing the Thai border into Burma, and actually place a written order for the heroin at an SUA camp. Shortly thereafter, a contingent of SUA soldiers would take the heroin to a controlled area and release it to the broker only after the broker had paid the entire amount owed. It was all to be done in the open, under the guns of the SUA soldiers, in a clearing in the jungle, hours from the nearest non-SUA village.

  Mike and I glanced at each other. It was important for us to understand the logistics, but there was no way in hell we were going into the jungles of Burma—into Shan United Army stronghold villages—on our own, carrying hundreds of thousands in cash.

  Phong could see we were ready to walk away.

  Mike’s temper flared again, and Phong immediately sweetened the pot.

  “I will put in one-fourth of the money myself,” he said.

  Mike came at him again, hard: “Look, enough games, I want to meet the refinery owner,” he said.

  “Maybe, after the deal is done.”

  Mike and I exchanged knowing glances. We’d hit our roadblock; we couldn’t push Phong any further.

  • • •

  Mike told Phong he wanted to talk to him in private about making the bigger deal. Phong was still relaxed after the successful two-unit deal, and let his guard down enough to meet us in the back of our four-door Toyota sedan.

  Phong inched over to the middle of the backseat, and Mike and I squeezed in on either side of him. Two Thai cops, posing as drivers, were sitting up front. Phong’s look of icy menace had now melted; he was smiling.