How the CIA tried to fight communism and build a drug empire. Once again in the early 1950s, the CIA armed and financed Chinese nationalist forces based in Burma, hoping to launch an invasion of Communist China. In May 1951, Kuomintang (KMT) General Lee Mi, supported by the CIA, led thousands of troops from Burma into China's Yunnan Province, capturing several border provinces. The Chinese People's Liberation Army counterattacked and drove them back to the border. Instead of continuing to fight the communists, the KMT army increasingly turned to opium production and smuggling, using the profits to finance their forces. They helped turn the Golden Triangle, the mountainous border region where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet, into one of the world's largest centers for opium production and heroin trafficking. In the 1960s, heroin refineries were established in Burma and Thailand, with smuggling networks stretching through Bangkok and Hong Kong to supply international drug markets. Today, the Golden Triangle remains a drug-trafficking hub, with Myanmar being the world's largest producer of opium and a major center for the production of methamphetamine.

How the CIA tried to fight communism and build a drug empire. Once again in the early 1950s, the CIA armed and financed Chinese nationalist forces based in Burma, hoping to launch an invasion of Communist China. In May 1951, Kuomintang (KMT) General Lee Mi, supported by the CIA, led thousands of troops from Burma into China's Yunnan Province, capturing several border provinces. The Chinese People's Liberation Army counterattacked and drove them back to the border. Instead of continuing to fight the communists, the KMT army increasingly turned to opium production and smuggling, using the profits to finance their forces. They helped turn the Golden Triangle, the mountainous border region where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet, into one of the world's largest centers for opium production and heroin trafficking. In the 1960s, heroin refineries were established in Burma and Thailand, with smuggling networks stretching through Bangkok and Hong Kong to supply international drug markets. Today, the Golden Triangle remains a drug-trafficking hub, with Myanmar being the world's largest producer of opium and a major center for the production of methamphetamine.