>> heroin – even to party drugs such as
ecstasy – and make orders on spec, rather
than pumping whatever it made straight to
market. He showed us pictures of pills his own
machine had pressed. Some of them were on
sale at clubs in Berlin and London. This was
Uber for druglords. We wanted to see it.The first night we met, Mark took us to
a small club in the city centre, where
men played one of his fishing games and
clouds of cigarette and opium smoke filled the
air. Upstairs we discussed The Machine. Mark
and two other shareholders briefed each other
on who we were and how we’d get to their lab.
Yet profits, they said, were down due to a
border crackdown by the Thai DEA, whose
operatives preferred to shoot suspects first and
ask questions later. Routes into Thailand, from
where drugs often found their way to ships in
Bangkok and other ports, were being squeezed.
Perhaps chaperoning to their lab would add
some notoriety? We weren’t sure. But Mark
and his associates seemed keen, particularly a
youngish man with an elaborate side-parting
and heavily tattooed arms who grinned and
sank can upon can of weak-tasting Myanmar
beer as we spoke.
As days wore on we became more aware of
our plan’s pitfalls. For one, it would involve trav-
elling to a spitball town called Mong Hsat. That
required a government-issued travel permit, as it
would pass from Tachileik through Wa territory.
Having failed at the first attempt with Tachileik’s
immigration officers, we secured a permit to get
to Keng Tung, a city around three hours away
that once housed a royal palace, latterly Khun
Sa’s largest yaba factory.
A second problem simmered. Each new night
we spent in Tachileik, we picked up a new tail.
Each night a member of the Myanmar police’s
intelligence division, dressed in a shirt and
traditional longyi kilt, would sidle up to our res-
taurant or bar and pace back and forth intently,
sometimes for hours. Should we call him out,
another would appear in his place. The more
they appeared, the more spooked our hosts
became. “Myanmar has the best CIA in the
world,” one pointed out. Given they’re patrolling
the world’s most successful drug industry, that
may not be true.
Nonetheless, paranoia set in. There is a saying
in Burmese: “You cannot trust your knee.”
Everything is questionable. Centuries of colo-
nialism and remote, despotic rule mean that
nothing is to be trusted. Wait staff refuse to
clear plates or bottles from tables so customers
can’t claim they’ve had less to eat or drink and
try to underpay. Trust is often afforded only
to those within one’s own ethnic group. All
minorities hate the Burmese – the nation’s dom-
inant group – and Muslims. Engage the average
Shan resident on the Rohingya genocide in thecountry’s northwest and you risk denting your
faith in humanity.
All these peculiarities come partnered with a
bureaucracy that would make Kafka shudder and
corruption that ranks among the world’s worst.
Waiting around in a drug town to be led to
a jungle lab by young men who are almost
constantly high, all the while being watched
by cops and God knows who else: the stress
finds an outlet in true Tachileik style, ending
nights by purchasing packets of plantain leaves
soaked in purple opium and either chasing its
fumes from tinfoil or smoking it out of a bong.
There’s a reason people have taken it for cen-
turies. The high is a helter-skelter, topsy-turvy
mix of high and low: cannabis and cocaine
rolled into one.
The next morning we were finally headed to
Keng Tung. The ride wends along empty roads
through thick, serried flora. Before I arrived in
Myanmar I wondered how a £47bn drug indus-
try could thrive in a country the size of France.
Staring out at Shan’s endless, rolling hills, which
tail off towards the Yunnan border, I under-
stood. We arrived in Keng Tung mid- afternoon
and ate a barbecue in the shadow of Khun Sa’s
old stronghold, the shell of which sits among
pagodas on a dirty, man-made lake. Myanmar
beer, drunk by the 600ml bottle, struggled to
oil conversation. If the Tatmadaw saw us, we
might have to cancel the entire trip. Worse, they
might arrest us. We spent the night in a nonde-
script hotel outside town. We were drunk. The
Machine felt a little closer.
Among Myanmar’s hermetic almost- kingdoms,
Wa State is the strangest. Prised into two
enclaves – one bordering China, the other
Thailand – its 600,000 citizens live in a sealed
quasi-state where every man is conscripted to an
army decked in decades-old fatigues and China-
made AK-47s. Wa’s military, the United Wa State
Army, was once the world’s biggest producer of
yaba. Since 2005, officials claim, it has weaned
off drugs for coffee, rubber and other minerals.
It is hard to believe.
Getting to Mark’s Machine through Wa
required cover, so we posed as Christian mis-
sionaries, hoping to preach the gospel to godless
communists. It worked. After just one night in
Keng Tung, we hobbled back across mountain
roads to Tachileik.
We crawled along the region’s dirt roads for
six hours before arriving at Mong Hsat – a
flat, dusty crossroads built around a tarpaulin-
covered market of food and used Chinese goods- a little after sunset.
Police operatives on mopeds followed our
battered Toyota Hiace. As in Tachileik, it was
our presence, rather than that of a clique of
drug producers, that stirred their interest.
Mark outlined our plan for The Machine. At
dawn we’d head out, blindfolded, along a little-
known jungle route, avoiding Tatmadaw and
Wa checkpoints. Of the group, only Tattoo Guy
knew it. He looked calm. Mark seemed cock-
sure, too. But, he added, his jaw dripping with
blood-red betel juice, “If anything goes wrong,
jungle justice will be enforced.”
We woke around 5am. Then, we waited. And
waited. At first, Mark said he was waiting for
the cops to leave the lobby. A day passed slowly,
in stifling heat, broken only by a midday trip to
the market. At night, the police – and walls of
mosquitoes – ensured we didn’t leave the hotel.
For the first time, our hosts appeared worried.
The next morning followed much the same
pattern, except for one detail: Tattoo Guy had
gone. Later that day, Mark told us why. The
previous night, his accomplice had driven to
the lab, stolen guns, money and drugs and sped
off across the Lao border. Not even Mark knew
the route. Just like that, our hope of seeing
The Machine died. We spent an afternoon
agonising as to whether it was worth staying
in Mong Hsat, then gave up and rolled slowly
back to Tachileik.
A day later I was sat in a Yangon bar with
Mark. He seemed genuinely upset and told
me he’d lost face. He and his associates were
hunting Tattoo Guy. “He cannot live,” Mark
added, offering to show me a picture of the
body. I implored him not to do anything of
the sort. To double down, I offered to return to
Myanmar just after Christmas. I shuddered as
the words left my mouth. I’d spent a fortnight
chasing The Machine and was leaving with
little more than notes, barely enough inter-
views to count on a single hand and memories
of the strangest reporting trip of my career.
Who knew meth dealers would be so unreli-
able? Myanmar had chewed me up and spat
me out, as it has done to millions before me.
I was unsure if I was chasing The Machine for
the story or some personal wager with myself.
Either way, I had to see it. The next morning, I
began planning another trip.Upon our return to Myanmar in January,
we visit Lwalkhan, a village in a pro-
government militia territory 250 miles
north of Tachileik. In 2018, the Burmese author-
ities had announced raids on two labs – a rarity- that held more than £5m worth of equipment.
It’s night and almost all the village’s lights are
off. Somebody has scrawled “Fuck you” on
the wall of what looks like a youth centre. A
middle-aged woman selling food and drink
claims she knows nothing about the lab. One
teenage boy who walks past stops to answer
questions, before a friend cuts in. “Don’t talk,”
the second boy says. “Be careful.”
Rumour has it the lab is back up and running.
A pastor in a nearby town tells us it’s an open
secret that the Tatmadaw raided the labs when
they got too big to control. He sees trucks
coming out of Lwalkhan regularly. “If you want
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186 GQ.CO.UK APRIL 2020