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cover of episode The Burmese Heroin Jungle Kingpin  & the Transgender Opium Queen

The Burmese Heroin Jungle Kingpin & the Transgender Opium Queen

2021/10/19
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The Underworld Podcast

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Khun Sa, a warlord and drugmaker, played a significant role in the modern heroin industry, supplying a large portion of America's heroin during his reign.

Shownotes Transcript

Khun Sa was a mercenary, a rebel, a warlord and a freedom fighting drugmaker who all-but created the modern heroin industry in the wake of the Vietnam War’s smack epidemic. At one point, the Shan hero, his fiefdom buried deep in the Burmese brush, supplied three quarters of all the gear in America. No wonder Washington called him the ‘Prince of Death.’ But Khun Sa’s path was actually paved by a princess, who eschewed a life of Kokang royalty to become a gun-toting shaven-headed, trans opium kingpin. Few dared to mess with Miss Hairy Legs, who dated Hollywood stars and went everywhere with a cigarette-carrying lackey.

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