Khun sa biography
Khun sa photo...
At the height of his power, Asian warlord Khun Sa, who died this week, commanded an army of thousands and supplied as much as a quarter of the world's heroin.
Khun Sa trafficked drugs and fought wars with impunity |
As the drugs flowed from his fiefdom on the Thai-Burma border during the 1980s, he would play host to journalists and Western tourists, treating them to Taiwanese pop music and boasting of being a "king without a crown".
Khun sa biography
A seasoned guerrilla fighter, he once had surface-to-air missiles at his disposal and fended off sorties from national armies.
Even with his back to the wall in the mid-1990s, with Burmese troops advancing and his forces riven by political infighting, he managed to cut an extraordinary deal with his sworn enemy - the Burmese government.
In exchange for his surrender, he was protected from extradition to the US and reportedly given a concession to operate a ruby mine and a transport company - allowing him to live out the rest of hi