[olivelappers]

US police use 'beer campaign' to catch Burmese drug dealer

American officials have come up with a novel way of getting their man - printing the face of a notorious Burmese opium baron on styrofoam beer coolers to distribute in Bangkok's red-light district bars.



Wei Hsueh-kang's image on styrofoam beer bottle holders, served to customers with a US$2 million reward

By Ian MacKinnon, Hua Hin, Thailand 11:02PM GMT 14 Dec 2010

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Thaipolice narcotics division are highlighting their $2 million (£1.4 million) reward for information leading to the capture of Wei Hsueh-kang, who is thought to frequent the districts .

Mr Wei is a guerrilla leader from the Wa tribe who has become the Golden Triangle's biggest drugs warlord and the DEA has long wanted to get its hands on him and prevent his extensive operations.

Mr Wei operates in the mountains ofBurma just over the border from Thailand and commands a army of 30,000 rebels armed with everything from artillery to anti-tank missiles and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapons.

The beer coolers - described as "informational products" - have been distributed in areas across Thailand in regions where drug trafficking is known to go on.

Apart from Bangkok's bars the coolers - translated into ten different languages, many of them from ethnic minorities - have been seeded in border areas along drug smuggling routes.

A spokeswoman at the US embassy in Bangkok brushed aside scepticism over whether distribution in girlie bars would bring results, saying the DEA-REWARDS.com website had already garnered several promising leads in Thailand and neighbouring countries.