LETTER FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA
On the banks of the Mekong River in Laos, facing Thailand, it's all you can see: The Kings Romans casino, a gilded colossus whose spikes rise corolla-like to the sky. Two Rolls-Royces are displayed in the entrance. The lawns are manicured. A yellow Lamborghini blasts past. During the day in the gaming rooms, you'll recognize little Chinese kings on the prowl, their arms tattooed and their hair shaved. Smoking, chewing tobacco, impassive Laotian dealers in impeccable dresses: This is the Macau of the frontier, the aptly named Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a piece of Communist Laos conceded for 99 years in 2007 to a Chinese gambling magnate by the name of Zhao Wei.
The reason it bears this name is that the famous Golden Triangle – the vast territory shared by Myanmar, Laos and Thailand that became the world epicenter of opium trafficking in the 1960s-1970s – has its center of gravity a stone's throw from the casino, in the middle of the Mekong River at the intersection of the borders between these three countries. On the Thai side, tourists treat themselves to a mini-cruise in a pirogue on these lawless waters or visit the opium museum. In the evening, they dine on terraces along the river, facing the glittering city.
The Golden Triangle is booming: Not only did Myanmar become the world's leading opium producer again in 2023, thanks to the civil war, but it also supplies most of the synthetic drugs consumed throughout Asia. As for the dirty money trickling through the casinos that were hastily erected decades ago in these poorly regulated border areas, it is now flowing freely, in the form of cryptocurrencies, thanks to online gambling and cyber-fraud operations orchestrated by Chinese mafias in Southeast Asia.
The government's blessing
Seventeen years after its foundation, the new capital of the Golden Triangle, the mother of all the region's crime cities, is looking good: A new airport opened this year, providing direct access from Vientiane. From Thailand, it can only be reached by boat – the first bridge over the Mekong is more than 50 kilometers downstream.
Some 15 towers, between 25 and 30 stories high, have sprouted up along the river. In front of the casino, Myanmar workers are giving the last strokes of paint to a baroque palace that will house entertainment along a Venetian canal. All around, it's like a Chinese city, with blocks of flats and office blocks stretching for miles. Between 30,000 and 50,000 people are expected to live here. Chinese shopkeepers appear to have transposed a convenience store or a restaurant from their villages in Sichuan or Hunan, where you can pay in renminbi for goods brought in by truck or boat from China.
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