Notorious Golden Triangle drug lord Khun Sa has died in Burma's main city after a long illness, a former associate said today.
"He died on October 27th at his home in Yangon [Rangoon]," Col Yod Suk said by telephone from his jungle headquarters on the Thai-Burma border. Yod Suk said said the 74-year-old had been suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure.
However, a Western diplomat in Rangoon said there was no confirmation Khun Sa had died.
After decades of guerrilla war funded by the heroin trade from his part of the Golden Triangle straddling Burma, Laos and Thailand, Khun Sa signed a peace deal with Burma's ruling generals in 1996.
Since then, Khun Sa was thought to have been living under government protection in Burma's most populous city, despite a $2 million price on his head from Washington.
At the height of his powers in the 1980s, he led 20,000 men in the largest private army in Burma. US narcotics officials estimate he was responsible for at least half the heroin flowing out of the region.
The Golden Triangle then was by far the biggest supplier of heroin to the world, and Washington branded him the "Prince of Death".