The Golden Triangle is unquestionably
the epicenter
of illicit drug production.
It's the craziest, most lawless
most scary-ass place
that you could ever travel to.
13 Chinese sailors killed.
These were not victims of firefights.
These people had been executed.
The Mekong massacre
was one the largest killings
of Chinese nationals outside of China
since World War II.
The villain behind
this terrible massacre
is Naw Kham
the freshwater pirate
of the Mekong River.
But catching Naw Kham wasn't like
finding a needle in a haystack.
It was like finding a needle
in a jungle.
The Thai Kitchen
is a really nice restaurant
that overlooks the Mekong.
The kitchen is
just north of Chiang Saen.
It's a few miles away
from the Burmese border.
It's right across from Laos.
It is right there
at the Golden Triangle.
So one of the waiters at Thai Kitchen
is in his room.
He can see upstream
two barges docked together.
Surrounded by the Pha Muang
by these uniformed policemen.
Jirasak... come in, over.
Go ahead. Over.
Shooting incident at Mekong River.
Roger that.
We're on our way. Over.
(Thai)
We could hear faint sounds
of a gunfight.
I was startled and confused.
Our captain heard Yang Deyi saying
through the marine VHF radio
"Oh no, someone's dead."
Our rescue team found two barges
docked along the bank of the river.
There was blood around the cabin
and the walkway.
In the cockpit, we found a dead body.
A man who was shot in the torso.
I thought that
this incident was a big deal
so I rushed to work on it
and report it.
The Pha Muang, this drug taskforce
holds a press conference
the next morning.
The Thai authorities
received intelligence
that there would be
drug trafficking activity going down
through the Myanmar-Laos border.
They announce that
the Pha Muang had been positioned
in two speedboats
down river from these barges.
When they approach
they came under heavy fire.
The Pha Muang, they returned
heavy fire, these pirates
they said had gotten back
into their own dragon-tail boats
going upriver.
The Pha Muang declined to chase them.
At the time
the Thai authorities didn't mention
who was responsible for the clash.
When the Pha Muang boarded the boats
they found a million pills
six million dollars' worth of
methamphetamine, right beneath
a hundred dollars' worth of apples.
They suspected these pills
had been shipped down
from the Mong Hsat where most of
the methamphetamine factories are
and that they were shipping it down
to the Kings Romans Casino.
Why would the smugglers leave behind
six million dollars' worth of drugs?
When I arrived at the scene
I went on the first boat.
In the control room
there were bloodstains everywhere.
It had been sprayed with gunfire.
I was confused and puzzled
about what had happened.
It was strange
because there were two boats
there shouldn't be just one body.
Where were the other bodies?
At first, they only told us
there had been an incident
involving the two boats.
We didn't receive any calls
from the crew.
All their phones were dead.
That's when we knew it's serious.
The crew had disappeared.
Get it with that long stick.
On the afternoon of 7th October
the bodies started surfacing.
We found the bodies
one or two at a time.
Some were stuck at
the sandbar in the river.
Their mouths were duct-taped.
One had a broken neck.
Some of the bodies were shot
in the stomach and we could see
the remnants of the food they ate.
I'll always remember the images
of this brutal massacre.
I can never forget.
We could tell from their clothes
that they were Chinese sailors.
They had surfaced
where the Chinese boats were docked.
It's as if they knew where to surface.
On the third day
we found many more bodies.
These were not victims of firefights.
These people had been executed.
By the end of the day, 13 corpses
lined the docks of Chiang Saen.
All of them would be identified
as the Chinese crew of the two barges.
My brother's body was the first
to surface.
It felt like my world had collapsed.
The Mekong massacre
was one of the largest killings
of Chinese nationals outside of China
since World War II.
The outrage was immediate
and profound.
Families of the victims
have arrived in Thailand.
The farewell ceremony for the victims
will be held on 14 October.
The government in Beijing
wanted answers.
Why had they been blindfolded?
Why had they been killed
execution style?
Within a few days
the official explanation has begun
to look pretty weak.
Nine of the Pha Muang were arrested
in the immediate wake of this.
Now there's real questions afoot.
Were the crew of the two barges
involved in the drug trade?
Were they victims?
Or were they co-conspirators?
Why would the Pha Muang
want them dead?
I definitely thought of it
as a murder mystery.
By October 10th
a new theory emerges.
The Pha Muang announce that
the villain behind
this terrible massacre is Naw Kham.
But who was Naw Kham?
And was he guilty of it at all?
Naw Kham was this mythical figure
in this region of the Mekong River.
Born in 1969 in Lashio
a sleepy little city
north of the Golden Triangle.
I first met Naw Kham
we were in our early twenties.
He was an ordinary Dai teenager
kind of thuggish
and had been in the military.
Naw Kham was a radio operator
with the Shan United
Revolutionary Army.
So Naw Kham cuts his teeth
with Khun Sa
who's one of the major guerrilla
drug-running forces at this time.
But by 1996, Khun Sa cuts a deal.
His guerrilla force splits into three
and 26-year-old Naw Kham
comes to lead one of them.
He's given free rein
to run the drug trafficking
in his region.
I heard he was in charge of a troop
taking over turfs and doing business
in the Golden Triangle.
One thing that quickly becomes
evident to China is that
catching Naw Kham is going to be
a lot more complex
than the government would like.
The Chinese come up with
a joint-security agreement
that allows the Chinese
to take the lead
in the manhunt for Naw Kham.
This taskforce
that China sent into the region
is called Operation Mekong.
They're able to send a force
of 200 law enforcement officers
with full jurisdiction
throughout the entire region
to apprehend Naw Kham.
They spread their forces
to different villages in Laos
the Golden Triangle, Mae Sai
and Tachileik.
The Golden Triangle
is part of Southeast Asia
where Myanmar, Thailand
and Laos come together
basically in a perfect triangle.
It's a very remote
mountainous, poor area
basically run by warlords.
The Golden Triangle is unquestionably
the epicenter
of illicit drug production.
Drugs aren't just part of society
up there. They dominate society.
Catching Naw Kham wasn't like
finding a needle in a haystack.
It was like finding a needle
in a jungle.
Tachileik is the border frontier town.
It's got the river
cutting right through.
One side, Thailand
the other side is Myanmar.
A little town which is a nexus
for illegal trade and everything
from jade to endangered animals.
The convergence of all those factors
makes Tachileik a very dangerous area.
You can sense as soon as you cross
that something isn't quite right.
Naw Kham sets up shop in Tachileik.
His entrepreneurial talents
began to come to the fore.
And he begins to gather
his own power base around him.
There is no law enforcement force
or opposition
that he has to contend with.
And his empire begins to expand.
He was quite good with relationships
to government officials.
Everybody likes him quite a lot.
Naw Kham was Robin Hood
to the people in the community.
Naw Kham was good to his friends.
He provided electricity
road maintenance
and water for his village.
People who lived in the villages
controlled by Naw Kham
enjoyed good living conditions.
He was a Buddhist.
He would do only good things.
By this time, there's a major change
in the Golden Triangle.
Methamphetamine production
really began to take off.
It essentially exploded.
Factories start to spring up
all under Naw Kham's control.
He ramps up
methamphetamine production
and finds an almost unending demand
for whatever he can supply.
He has his own labs and factories
built around this large compound
and Naw Kham is getting rich.
These drug dealers
were getting wealthier.
On the other hand
the addicts were suffering.
Meth, it has a very strong effect
on people's mental function.
And in extreme cases cause psychosis.
We had heard rumors that
he was a daily user of meth.
Naw Kham was a drug user himself.
You could tell by looking at him.
People get into high-risk behaviors.
They become irrational.
Naw Kham was quite
a likable person at first.
But something went wrong.
That's how it started.
Northeast of Tachileik.
At the foot of the mountains
they have some caves there.
They used this location
for interrogation.
Stay still!
Stay still! I told you to sit still!
Get up! Stay still!
Where do you think you're going?
He murdered them
and beheaded them.
Put their heads on a stake
in the village, just to let everybody
know that they mean business.
Naw Kham has gotten big
big enough to come to
the attention of Interpol
and the Burmese government
is beginning to receive
a lot of pressure
to rein in this guy.
Naw Kham could not stay
in Tachileik anymore.
So, he went underground
and became sort of a terrorist
in that area.
At this point
Naw Kham has shifted operations.
He relocates to Sam Puu island.
He's no longer
the methamphetamine kingpin
of Tachileik.
What he is, is the tax man.
He creates this fortress
in the middle of the Mekong River.
In the Golden Triangle
the Mekong River
is a major trade route.
It's one of the most important
trade routes in the world
for many millennia.
You have trades that often times
originating in southern China
going all the way to ports
in Thailand, Laos
and as far south as Cambodia.
And just as the Mekong
is an effective distribution route
for garlic or apples
likewise an incredibly effective
trade route for methamphetamine.
According to our intelligence
many ships also carried drugs
at the time.
It's a trafficker's paradise
essentially.
Naw Kham and his men basically
tax river traffic
that was going down the Mekong River.
Every shipment of drug
passing through
they have to pay tax to him.
They have to pay protection to him.
And Sam Puu island can't be avoided.
He's very smart, very strategic.
Naw Kham has
a hundred highly trained soldiers
armed with grenade launchers
heavy automatic machine guns
sophisticated military technology.
They emerge in speedboats
faster than anything else
on the Mekong River
to interdict with whatever traffic
they want to.
There was a signal that would sound
once a boat sailed into his area.
He levies a surcharge of $160
on every kilo of heroin
and 10 cents on
every pill of methamphetamine
that come down the river.
They had no choice.
The ships had no choice.
He would shoot up
those who refused to pay him.
So that's how he got very rich.
One of my friends in Tachileik
told me that when he visited
his place in that island
he was sleeping on the bed.
The mattress was full of U.S. dollars.
One hundred dollars, full.
The whole mattress.
He was shocked. For sure that
he was a multi-millionaire
at that time.
Eventually, Robin Hood
pushes his luck too far.
He tried to tax not just
the drug runners
coming down the river but everyone.
He wanted a cut of everything.
It got more frightening.
At the height of his power
Naw Kham would stop almost
every Chinese ship for inspection.
We thought this river
was really dangerous.
In 2009
there was an incident
in the middle of the Mekong River.
The Burmese sent a police force
to catch him.
Five of my men started
from their base along the river
but Naw Kham's men also knew that
this was coming on that day.
They have prior intelligence.
Naw Kham's men fired from the bank.
I lost five men.
Two got washed into the Mekong River.
Never got back their bodies.
I was shocked that
he would dare to do this
to the drug police.
This was the first time
that he really confronted us.
Naw Kham's attack
on the Myanmar police officers
was audacious
and he put a big bulls-eye
on his back.
Naw Kham becomes an agent of chaos.
The fallout would come next.
13 Chinese sailors were killed
execution style, blindfolded
in really horrible fashion.
All eyes were on Naw Kham
the freshwater pirate.
One thing working
in the Chinese government's favor
is that Naw Kham can't stop working.
He's still trying to run
drug operations
while he's on the run.
This leads them to a trafficker
that actually worked for Naw Kham.
On December 13th, with the help
of the local police in Burma
the Chinese are able
to capture this trafficker.
Under interrogation
the Chinese learn the structure
of Naw Kham's organization
and they've learned that
Naw Kham has been living
in his mistress's house
in this small Laotian town.
Naw Kham is quite a handsome guy
and he has a lot of mistresses.
Nearly every village
he has mistresses.
So, that was the weak point
that the Chinese took.
Pretty quickly, they staged a raid.
It was really difficult for
the authorities to arrest Naw Kham
because the locals
loved Naw Kham so much.
They helped him by tipping him off.
By the time they actually get to
where Naw Kham's supposed to be
he's escaped.
At this point
the government of Beijing is coming
under increasing pressure
from its own people
to capture this guy.
The Burmese are cracking down
he's in Laos.
If the Laotian are chasing him
he's in Thailand.
And if the Thai are chasing him
he's back into Burma.
Naw Kham has become
China's Osama bin Laden.
The breakthrough comes in April.
The Chinese learned that Naw Kham
was planning to cross the Mekong.
In the evening, he happened to decide
to go home to see his mistress.
Stop! This is police!
Don't run! Stop!
Stop now!
Don't resist!
On your knees!
The hunt is over.
They've captured him alive.
This man that previously
had only existed
in blurry photographs
was now the subject
of the televised attention
of the largest nation in the world.
I saw the news on television.
I felt very happy
that the man behind the massacre
was arrested.
They made a big show of his arrest
to demonstrate China's power.
He is public enemy number one
in China, the top news story
throughout the country.
It wasn't until Naw Kham's arrest
that we knew what he looked like.
Looking at Naw Kham
his eyes were dark and unfathomable.
The eyes of a killer.
On September 18th
Chinese state television
gets access to Naw Kham
and conducts an interview with him.
Why did you pick Chinese boats
as your target?
On 22nd September 2011
Burmese soldiers came
and shot my people
who live in the lower region.
Four died and four were injured.
We were angry
and decided to get revenge.
I was free that day
so I went to Kunming
to attend the court trial.
We told them that
we were families of the victims
and each family was given
a few passes to enter the courtroom.
Summon the defendants
Naw Kham, Hsang Kham.
My brother's wife went to the trial.
We wanted to see Naw Kham
sentenced to death.
We were split up by the staff.
We couldn't sit together.
Just in case we got too emotional
and lose control.
Yi Lai, Zha Xika, Zha Bo
Zha Tuobo to the court.
And now we see
Naw Kham being brought in.
The trial of Naw Kham
and his deputies begins.
This is must-see TV.
We believe that the evidence
presented by the prosecution
as well as the evidence gathered
during police investigation
will bring us closer to the truth
of the Mekong massacre.
Public Prosecutor, please read out
the revised indictment.
Indictment of
the people's procuratorate of
Kunming city, Yunnan province, China.
Defendant: Naw Kham, male
Born on 8 November 1969
Shan ethnicity.
ID card number: MYI.
On 5 October 2011
did you commit the criminal acts
of hijacking two Chinese barges
murdering the Chinese crew and
planting drugs on the Chinese barges?
I didn't know about it.
They did it all by themselves.
I only found out about the attack
after it occurred.
Naw Kham denied everything.
As you can imagine
the family members were very upset.
It didn't happen like that.
But what has happened, has happened.
The mistake has already been made.
But my subordinates
were the ones responsible.
So I am here
to plead with the Chinese government
to penalize me with a fine.
A heavy fine.
All of us wanted
Naw Kham to pay with his life.
The widow of Qiu Jiahai
an engine department crew
from the barge Hua Ping
said something that I'll never forget.
She said, "I just want to know"
"if my husband said anything"
"before he died."
Well...
How should I put it?
I don't have the words for it.
There are no words for it.
Till now, we still don't know
what happened
and why the 13 Chinese crew
were killed.
I don't think
that Naw Kham is the murderer
because the incident didn't occur
in his area.
What reason would he have
for doing that?
I'm not 100% convinced that Naw Kham
would be bold enough to do this.
I'd say drugs were
the main cause of this tragedy.
Naw Kham was using drugs
and ordered the massacre
in his drug-addled state.
I still think that Naw Kham
might be right in saying that
he wasn't involved in the killings.
But these killings
could not have been done
without his knowledge.
At least
he must have known what happened.
By 5.30pm the next evening
the trial's over.
Naw Kham has reported
to have pled guilty.
Interestingly
that's the one part of the trial
that was not televised live.
Bailiffs
take the following people, Naw Kham...
The prosecution
for the Chinese government
had promised overwhelming evidence.
Yet they couldn't even place Naw Kham
at the scene of the actual crime.
There's no question that
Naw Kham was a bad dude.
To wield power in the Golden Triangle
you had to be.
I don't doubt that
he had personally killed people.
But why would he have accompanied
these Chinese boat crews
all the way down
into the middle of Chiang Saen
well outside of his territory
and then killed them
in broad daylight?
It doesn't make any sense.
The sentence is as follows.
All rise, please.
For committing voluntary manslaughter
the defendant Naw Kham is hereby
sentenced to death.
For committing kidnapping
the defendant Naw Kham is hereby
sentenced to life imprisonment.
Naw Kham was sentenced to death
by lethal injection.
The Chinese had given him
a final statement.
I hope my children
don't end up like me.
I hope they get a good education
get a proper job
and live their lives.
Don't end up like me.
The two screens in the middle
are showing the real-time monitoring
of Naw Kham in solitary confinement.
After receiving the death sentence
Naw Kham and his three conspirators
are very nervous and fearful.
Their desire to live is strong.
There is about 20 minutes to go
before the procedure.
Naw Kham knows he's nearing
the last moments of his life.
The final shot of the feed
is Naw Kham sitting peacefully
his arms at his sides.
When Naw Kham was executed
no, I didn't feel anything.
He's just another criminal.
You reap what you sow.
I think it was his time to go.
Karma dictates everything.
We all have to let go.
I'm not going to comment on
whether he deserved to die.
The family members of the killed crew
most certainly hate him to the core
and he has paid for what he's done.
Time will handle the rest.
When Naw Kham was executed in China
the situation didn't change here much
on the border area.
You take out someone
and someone else replaces them.
Someone fills the void.
What we're worried about is
another super group coming in.
We've seen over decades.
One drug trafficker goes
another comes in.
It's never been a better time
to be a drug trafficker
in the Golden Triangle.