HIGH GRADE, CHEAP AND DEADLY CURSE

AUSTRALIA has been cursed with the easy availability of high-grade cheap
heroin.

Eighty per cent of the five tonnes of heroin consumed by Australian addicts
each year comes from Burma, which has experienced an extraordinary growth
in heroin production.

State and federal police sources said yesterday heroin importations into
Australian tended to be organised by Chinese-Australian criminal syndicates
based in Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

Federal law enforcement sources said Vietnamese involvement in heroin
importation appeared to be increasing.

Some criminals were travelling to Vietnam to organise deliveries.

The sources said criminal elements in the Vietnamese community remained the
key distributors of heroin in Australia.

They supplied the drug through their own networks of family and friends and
other criminal identities.

State and federal law enforcement agencies have provided The Courier-Mail
with an insight into the origins and extent of the nation's heroin problem.

The sources said South-East Asian organised crime involved money
laundering, organised prostitution, extortion and immigration rorts.

But the sources said the greatest risk posed by mem bers of South-East
Asian crime syndicates was their involvement with heroin importation and
distribution.

Police sources said "traditional self-contained" syndicates appeared to be
co-operating with rival factions, which had seen the emergence of temporary
alliances between Hong Kong Chinese and Vietnamese groups overseas.

The sources said sea cargo was the major avenue for bulk heroin importation
but remote sea ports and coastal areas remained vulnerable to traffickers.

Sydney was the key point of entry for Australia's heroin importations
because of the high levels of passenger and cargo traffic.

Southern-based Asian illicit drug syndicates still viewed the Northern
Territory as an "acceptable" risk for drug importation into Australia, they
said.

The sources said southern China had emerged in the 1990s as a major heroin
trafficking route for heroin.

The route was from the Golden Triangle to western countries.

Police said the shift followed the relocation of heroin refineries from the
Thailand-Burma border region to the China-Burma border region.

China's climate and topographical features were conducive to large-scale
opium cultivation, the sources said.

Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland Chairman Nick Xynias said his
experience with the Vietnamese community was positive with only a small
element involved in criminal activities.

"My experience with the Vietnamese community is that they are decent and
hard working people," he said.

Mr Xynias said the drug problem was global and not confined to the
Vietnamese community.

"Among them will be one or two on the wrong side of the law and that
happens to everyone."