or the japanese so chinese dogs have germany controversial immigration policies that anyone who has a well founded euro persecution should be able to call them as a loaf minister from syria has closed the door to syrian refugees is a confession that maybe his son goes head to head with senior trump advisor stephen moore this year the trump deficit the trillion dollars due to the world not to worry a little shrug well no i'm not i'm not in the go to 0. record breaking amounts of methamphetamines are being seeds across asia. massive calls of pillows and crystal meth are flooding the region. some of it reaching as far north as japan and as far south as a stray lead in new zealand. where does it all come from me m r the biggest meth producer in the world. little. old world has

lost before it can struggle. one on one east travels to the borderlands of me in my arms to investigate what's driving asians method and why authorities are powerless to stop. this so-called golden trying a border region known for its beauty and the tories for drugs. behind these mountains is myanmar we're standing in thailand and over there is a highway making it really easy for traffickers to bring drugs over the border and straight to the cities of thailand it's a perfect combination of geography infrastructure supply and demand.

we're on the frontline of the drug war joining a military patrol trying to stop the massive flow. coming across the border. colonel. is the leader. he's overseen some of thailand's biggest violent busts. there.

covers more than 30 kilometers of the border. many encounters and gun fights. killed 5 traffickers doing the bust but there are always more willing to take their chances. traffickers with backpacks full of meth can run across the border. minutes. depends on the. backpacks are just one way to traffic mess and the staggering amount is coming in authorities estimate that they're only catching about 20 percent of it. another way they try and stop the flow of drugs at checkpoints along these border provinces. terry and police search buses and trucks where large stashes could be

hidden. the checkpoints are designed to catch traffickers by surprise and today the authorities have had a big win. this is what 300 kilograms of the crystal meth looks like. soldiers carry out of their bundle for the camera. known on the streets as this high purity form of the drug is the most expensive kind if you'd reached australia these drugs would be worth $100000000.00. look at you know isn't. going to. buy. that out of

a new i. phone. number or more. money it's with thailand's narcotics control board he tracks the patterns of trafficking he says in more than 30 years on the job he's never seen a time when so much crystal meth is being seized on average there has been a bust every week if. the 1000. and for the producers seizing this amount is that a big hit for them. the money. to push. the 20. the drugs the do make it across the border get

distributed among dealers. the trade is so lucrative it outweighs the threat of life sentences. this former dealer agreed to meet with us if we disguised his voice and appearance. crap about. i would buy the pills for $2.50 and then i sell it for nearly $4.00. for 5 years he sold thousands of these red pills a day they're known locally as you. just. leave him mine they delivered the drugs to me and back. at 1st they gave me small bags of $200.00 pills. and it was $2.00 pills a bag. and then 4000 and then up to 10 balls in the. car how long does it take you so one it doesn't take long. just

a day. his profit 110000 pills could be as much as 13000 dollars did you ever think back what you were doing with hurting other people and if you did why did you continue with the leg of. their 1st i thought this was wrong. but after a while i was making money so i didn't think too hard about it going to meet. the demand for meth across asia has never been higher. growing economies are being fueled by workers riding away in jobs. many laborers used which means crazy medicine to help them work long hours while those who can afford it use the pricier crystal meth or ice to party hard. stories about meth addiction are regularly in the new highs. i don't call.

at all. times and what happens. and it's. what weapon in my wow yeah. oh yeah by a wide angle bro i absented you. but i thought that by. but the majority of users are everyday people. is a single mother who works several jobs to support her 2 children who live with her parents. she says she regularly uses the. stimulating combination of methamphetamine and caffeine to help her concentrate at work. it's like when i become super focused on what's in front of me i stay on task. and i just sit there and human. and. easy

to get a bath for but have to go to the dealer twice 1st to place my order and then have to wait hours if not days to go pick it up and now i can pick it up right away. each pill costs $3.00 tip says many people she knows have become users. in some cases users can work an exchange for their pills they have one here some people just work it off by doing manual labor they don't have to pay for a. tip uses almost every day but denies she's the nat act. even though i use i never let my kids never let them have it they never even seen it. meth production is cheap and large scale estimates vary between 216000000000 pills

a year that's more than the number of coffees starbucks or. most of it is made in state which has ready access to precursor chemicals from china. it also has roads leading into thailand where the finished product is then trafficked to other countries. has become an ideal hiding place for meth labs thanks to decades of civil wars. vast areas of the state are still controlled by armed groups both rebels and government forces. the drug trade is a huge money maker for all sides. the most powerful of the rebel groups is the united states army they used to be famous for their heroin smuggling authorities in myanmar and thailand think they're

now in the meth business. journalists are rarely given access. but they have recently appointed a spokesperson. by phone. time to answer questions. he's surprisingly upfront about drugs being produced in wa territory but insists that it's all in the past. i don't. get a lot. do you think there are any labs and your territory right now. there are.

no drugs with sporadic rains in televised drug burnings there true involvement in the meth training it's difficult to prove. the only one allowing us to see for ourselves is the shan state army south. it is shot on state day. a celebration of resistance against the mean more military . all you know and i don't know no one. is the defacto leader of this territory. once it does in the business of the club tomorrow and then.

as this army shows off its fighting skills shine people from across the state parade in their best outfit. it's an expensive affair for an army still fighting a civil war. yachts are going to soldiers are considered rebels by many in myanmar but here he is loved. and what he says is obeyed no stranger to the drug trade he once fought alongside the infamous drug kingpin couldn't stop who was known for trafficking heroin worldwide but these days he says the territory he controls is drug free like i am all government global policy people yarmulke. you know yarmulke many. about won't involve one car i know what.

this policy might sound harsh but it has popular support. that. people children and adults don't want addicts are able if the state army so we know all the drugs we young and old men and women all agree to these polls and. is a former addict who joined the army to get clean. i would take 10 pills a day and $3.00 to $4.00 pills at a time. when i went to work i secretly took the pills without my family knowing the me and were done with but when they found out we fought along the way. they

were disgusted with me. he used to live in an area ruled by a patchwork of militias their dealers were easy to find. when i bought it i bought it from a policeman. people told me it was both the dealer and police. he was part of a militia group i'm not afraid of anything. says drugs are so enmeshed with authority only tough policies like death threats can stop it. yes you get by how the world says drugs are a huge problem. and the rebels get all their money from the roads. but that's not true and we're radek eating drugs we're not getting money from drugs at all. but reports suggest some armed groups in myanmar earn money by providing safe

passage for the traffickers i ask him if it's true. to know if they pass through here we arrest them what is your source of income if not drugs we do tax everything not related to drugs. my timber gems my cattle awful we could plenty of money from that. if we're mixed up with drugs our nation going to progress with the international community wouldn't accept us because it's immoral that's why i've decided to fight drugs. if we see a meth lab we shoot it up no conversation when we get rid of them. but those who have worked in n.t. narcotics here are more skeptical. john whalen is a bit tired united states drug enforcement agent he worked with the da inside me in

march for 25 years the chance to hurt me found told me that they're serious about eradicating drugs in their territory how seriously should we take i mean i personally i wouldn't take them very seriously if they're there for years put on shows for the benefit of the west more or less to say that they're serious about it . but they still benefit from the trade they have to fund their army they have to pay them somehow feed them somehow so there's too much financial benefit for them to be out of the trade. denies any involvement and orders his right hand man to take us on a patrol. to prove it. major hunk leads us to an area where he says they've destroyed methamphetamine labs. we've made sure that the truck traffic. their drugs into our area that. he brings me to

a based on their border. and what to read. what about the other 11. more than 11. business i'm. just not in control of it. everyone knows who is producing the drugs it's in the news. the narcotics. and mars only government. money. why isn't anyone destroying those labs that's what i'd like to know your answer points the finger firmly at groups aligned with the military i think the biggest drug producers are the pro-government militias. which are allied with the. army they make the most drugs because they can

operate in many areas. for decades the meum are military struck ceasefire deals with rebels and turn them into pro-government militias by giving them more autonomy and turning a blind eye to their illicit activities. a recent raid in a pro-government militia territory uncovered 2 meth labs capable of producing 10 tons of meth among the $7000000.00 of lab equipment they found a pill stamp with the infamous w y the same as the pill the dealer we met was selling. back in thailand i tracked ringback down japan. from the law who ethnic group he led a militia aligned with the government. 'd 'd know he lives in exile. japan says fighting alongside the myanmar military cost him his leg. he says he was never involved in

making drugs but in its tax from drug trafficking it was a source of income for his people in his day the drug being trafficked was heroin. there are rules about how much and where you have to pay whenever they cross into our territory they need to pay. more than 20 years later he says the meth business operates the same way. make sure you are at great risk he offers to take us to meet a current militia leader in pro-government militia territory. we agreed to meet at a border town called touchy like. thora t's call it the hub of meth trafficking. right now. it's

a dangerous to our journey for japan he's made a lot of enemies here are we now in paramilitary areas. but. this one is. 000-0000 militia and then militia. he says many of the militias here are involved in trafficking. so where we just passed we paid. was to the drug court. we passed through more than 4 pro-government militia territories it's not safe for us to make too many stops. to pat says the new roads have accelerated the mess train only fuel. not. possible. good will. they use the main routes now the meth

labs have been discovered just a few kilometers off the highway but this is as close as we can get without risking our safety. so it will go such a. good look at. all that. we arrive at a villa. run by the pro-government militia japan warns us not to ask too many questions like to pet this leader says his village would not survive without allying with the government. well michel much of the little money. will do all up with the i want to. use the harassment may have stopped but the village still has to find a way to earn money. to put love. to

the lot of people going on as if most. people and. i broach the sensitive topic of methamphetamine how are they getting their guys. to the top job while joe hockey football in the world so it's all just goes for what you want also what was little i thought all the trouble of having. to pet makes light of a tense situation. and it's time to leave. back in the van japan insists that providing safe passage for drug traffickers is one way for these poor ethnic groups to survive. it but that. got to watch. but for japan the real culprit is the myanmar military. in short as long as the myanmar

military exists the drugs will continue to exist. from generation to generation for a fugitive drug kingpins myanmar has been the only place where they have found safe haven. the only place they can. when i went east made multiple attempts to contact me mars drug enforcement division but received no reply for that in the capital yangon john will increase it's likely military officers turn a blind eye to the meth trade but doubts they are manufacturers is the military directly involved in the military unlikely are they allowing it to occur in their areas of operation yet they are. it's a deadly cycle drugs fund the wars and the wars provide the perfect camouflage to

keep the drugs flowing the narcotics trade meth trade certainly fuels the conflict proceeds from the narcotics trade are used to fund militia groups providing weapons providing food pay the soldiers so that's certainly not helpful to the peace process. mean more civil war long assessments of corruption of the created biggest meth problem. from the little red room to turns of crystal meth. there are incredible profits to be made because of the engine demand. and where there's demand there will always be supply. capturing a moment in time snapshots of other lives other stories providing

a glimpse into someone else's wild inspiring documentaries witness on al-jazeera. july on al-jazeera in a controversial move israel is expected to unacceptable supplements in the occupied west bank how will the world react in a not so sweet a story chocolate's heart of darkness expose the continued use of child labor on cocoa plantations president putin will try to stay in power beyond his final term with an attempt at changing russia's constitution maybe has sound will host a special series of interviews with attitude and tackling the big issues of our time marking the 25th anniversary of the biggest war crime on european soil since world war 2 we'll witness a ceremony paying respect to the victims of the sort of done so genocide. july on al-jazeera. on county because that's the colonies tank and dub losses increased

government that's ahead it was world war 2 levels the nasdaq hits a wreck hold high a stock markets devolves from reality plus the pandemic devastates indigenous communities across latin america. counting the cost well i'll just see it on the turn of the. when you're watching al-jazeera these are our top news stories the world health organization has reported a record increasing global krone virus cases with over 180000 new infections on sunday brazil has passed 50000 deaths linked to the corona virus and anger is growing at the response of president diabolus an arrow meanwhile numbers are still rising across latin america as daniel sharma reports all possible solutions are being considered. as dawn broke over the believe in capital of indigenous.