Tse Chi Lop

Tse was born in Guangzhou on 25 October 1963. He joined the Big Circle Gang, a criminal organization originated from Guangzhou and founded by youths who grew up under the Cultural Revolution, in his youth, and would continue to maintain his membership and connections with the group. In his early days in Toronto, Tse worked for Fujifilm and Kodak and made decent wages. In Tse's 1998 statement given after his arrest, he claimed that his parents, as well as his in-laws, all moved to Canada after his immigration to be under his care due to their sickness, and that he had two children, one of whom was born with breathing problems. At the time of his arrest, Tse had acquired Canadian citizenship, however was reported as having lived in mainland China for a few years to oversee the heroin operation. He had been based in Hong Kong since 2011 until his arrest in 2021. ==Activity==

Early years, heroin trade, and first arrest Tse continued his association with the Big Circle Gang in Toronto at the time when the group was trying to become established in Canada the late 1980s. In his early years in Canada, Tse, then only a mid-level member, negotiated a business partnership with the Toronto branch of the Montreal-based Rizzuto crime family to smuggle high-purity and low-cost heroin into Canada from the Golden Triangle for distribution through the American Mafia's networks in the US and Italy. Such business partnerships were unusual as the Mafia at that time generally refused to routinely trade with Asian organised criminal groups, yet surveillance wiretaps by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police revealed Tse to be the point man and the Mafia's earliest Chinese business partner in the heroin trade. By 1997, Tse would become the main person overseeing drug transport from Southeast Asia to Canada. After his return to Canada, Tse shifted his interest to synthetic drug trade in the Asia-Pacific, as the demand of heroin has reduced and his existing Mafia-based North American distribution network had collapsed. In Sam Gor's early years, Tse pioneered a "guaranteed delivery" system by which his organisation would replace any seized drugs free of charge. Market domination and personal wealth By the late 2010s, Tse became the biggest drug dealer in the Asia-Pacific, controlling over 70 per cent of the Australian meth supply and was also the dominant drug distributor of Japanese, South Korean and Philippine drug markets. Overall, Sam Gor in its heyday had a 40 per cent to 70 per cent share of the US$90-billion-worth Asia-Pacific drug trade. The proliferation of meth also sharply reduced its price by up to 70 percent in certain countries. Although no exact figures exist, it is believed that Tse accumulated tremendous wealth through Sam Gor. In 2019, the UNODC estimated that Sam Gor generated between US$8-billion and US$17.7-billion in revenue from meth a year earlier and had "expanded at least fourfold in the past five years." An official from the UNODC said that Tse's achievement and wealth potentially rivaled those of well-known drug lords, including Pablo Escobar or Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Tse also operated an elaborate money laundry scheme using Australia-based Crown casinos which prompted a national inquiry in 2019. During this time, Tse lived a lavish lifestyle in Hong Kong. He travelled only by private planes and hosted grand birthday parties in private resorts. He also hired eight Thai kickboxing bodyguards for his protection. A frequent gambler, Tse boasted having "Macao in [his] pocket" and once lost EUR 60-million in one night while visiting a casino there. Despite his low profile, Tse was sued in 2017 by Singapore-based Marina Bay Sands casino in a Hong Kong court as he was claimed to have owned SG$1.9-million in gambling debts. ==Downfall==

Initial investigations Tse first came to the attention of law enforcement in 2012. That year, the Australian Federal Police learned of a Hong Kong-based man named "Sam Gor" through wiretaps on a Melbourne-based greengrocer and drug distributor, Suky Lieu. A report from the Sydney Morning Herald alleged that Tse had been "residing" in Taipei "for several years." The AFP immediately started the process for his extradition from the Netherlands. The arrest was the culmination of Operation Kungur, led by the AFP with cooperation between Dutch and Taiwanese police, and supported by roughly twenty law enforcement agencies in Canada, China, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, and the US (including the DEA). In July 2021 a Dutch court approved an order to extradite Tse to Australia to face trial. As of November 2021, the Australian government has only charged him with one count of drug smuggling, in connection with evidence obtained through the 2013 surveillance. The trial of Tse was still pending as of August 2024. In December 2025, Tse Chi Lop made a plea deal and was sentenced to 16 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 10 years. The nearly five years Tse has spent in custody were counted as time served. He will be eligible for parole in January 2031. During the sentencing proceeding, it was revealed that, under usual circumstances, Tse would have faced a potential maximum sentence of life in prison. However, as County Court judge Peter Rozen noted, an "unusual" deal struck between former Australian attorney-general Michaelia Cash and Dutch authorities for Tse’s extradition meant the maximum penalty could only be at most 25 years. Even that was cut short due to the discount resulting from the guilty plea. == In popular culture ==

In November 2021 Discovery released a documentary on Tse titled ''The World's Biggest Druglord – Tse Chi Lop'' on Discovery+ as well as on its linear channels in South East Asia, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He also features as a character in the New Zealand TV series Far North. == References ==