Dutch police have arrested the head of one of the world’s biggest drugs syndicate from the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
Chinese born Canadian national Tse Chi Lop was arrested on Friday while he was on his way to board a flight to Canada.
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The Dutch police arrested the drug lord on a warrant issued by the Australian police in 2019 against him.
They reportedly took action after receiving a notice from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
The 56-year-old Lop heads the Sam Gor Syndicate which dominates a $70bn illegal drugs market across Asia.
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According to the Australian Federal Police, Lop’s company is responsible for up to 70 per cent of all illegal drugs entering the country.
Listed as one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, Lop has been able to give the slip to almost 20 agencies across the world.
According to sources, these agencies headed by the Australian Federal Police were involved in Operation Kungur that was launched to trace and arrest the drug lord.
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Australian police had reportedly been following Lop for more than a decade now.
As news about his arrest becomes public, Australia will now seek his extradition from the Netherlands to face trial there.
“He was already on the most-wanted list and he was detained based on intelligence we received,” a report quoted a Dutch police spokesman as saying.
THe had been arrested by the Us police on drug trafficking charges in the 1990s and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
UN estimates the syndicate’s revenue from methamphetamine sales could have been as high as $17billionn in 2018.
The drug lord is said to have shifted between Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years.
Australian media described his arrest as the “most important” for the country’s federal police in two decades.