Asia’s alleged crime kingpin Chung Chak Lee extradited to Australia
An alleged international crime lord allegedly at the centre of an evil Asian cartel is in Melbourne to face charges.
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Exclusive: An accused international crime kingpin allegedly at the centre of an Asian cartel which controls Australia’s drug trade has sensationally been dragged here to face trial.
In an unprecedented breakthrough which may have helped smash notorious criminal conglomerate The Company, key lieutenant Chung Chak Lee was secretly whisked into Melbourne on Saturday.
His arrival in designer clothes and handcuffs on Singapore Airlines flight SQ237 at 9.50am was the result of a dogged, decade-long global hunt led by the Australia Federal Police
Lee is accused of being the right-hand man to cartel boss Chi Lop Tse, known as Asia’s El Chapo, who turned The Company into a $23 billion a year evil empire.
The extradition was expected to tear apart The Company, or Sam Gor, cartel, which exports up to 70 per cent of the ice from Asia into Australia and has laundered millions through Crown Casino.
Tse is also one step away from also being extradited Down Under.
Late yesterday the AFP warned international criminals had “nowhere to hide” if they committed crimes in Australia, declaring its investigators the had the ability and patience to track them down.
Lee, 66, faced a short hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday afternoon.
The super-fit accused drug baron wore a black polo shirt, with a flowered patterned detail inside the collar, a court-enforced face mask and stylish thick black glasses.
He did not speak during the hearing in front of Magistrate Steven Raleigh, who adjourned the case until Tuesday to allow Lee to get legal representation.
Lee, who had a shaved head, has spent 18 months in jail in Bangkok after he was arrested there following a tip off.
He has been charged with trafficking more than 40kg of drugs, mainly ice, in Melbourne in 2012.
Australian cops worked with authorities in more than 20 countries to track him down.
“This is a significant milestone after years of persistent investigative work by the AFP and our partners,” Krissy Barrett, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner for Southern Command, said.
“The Australian Federal Police has an international network of partners that are committed to pursuing offenders and bringing them to justice.
“If you commit an offence, there is nowhere to hide. The AFP has the means and the patience to track you down.”
The Company or Sam Gor cartel has rapidly expanded the supply of ice across Australia, as Tse combined five warring triads into a super drug operation.
However, the cartel was ruthless, with videos found on a drug mule’s phone revealing they would torture their underlings with electric cattle prods and blowtorch their feet if they made mistakes or talked to police.
Tse became a billionaire drug lord, who travelled with eight Thai kickboxers as security guards, from the misery wrought by tons of ice shipped into Australia and around the world.
He lived a life of private jets and five-star hotels and was known to drop up to $90 million in a night on Macau’s casino tables before he was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in January 2021.
He lost an appeal against extradition in the Netherlands Supreme Court this week, and is now awaiting a final decision from the Dutch Justice Minister.
Tse was number one on an AFP target list, while Lee came in at number six, for his alleged hand-in-glove operation of the cartel’s deadly drug trade.
Australian police had spent years gathering evidence on Lee’s alleged links with Tse and The Company.
“We will allege the man is a senior criminal associate of the head of a prolific transnational organised crime syndicate involved in trafficking commercial quantities of border controlled drugs within Australia and around the world,” Assistant Commissioner Barrett said.
“He has appeared in court to face one charge of conspiracy to traffic a commercial quantity of a controlled drug.”
Lee was arrested in Bangkok in October 2020 after Australian Federal Police, working alongside Royal Thai Police, found he was living in an apartment in the nation’s cosmopolitan capital.
He travelled from Bangkok to Singapore on SQ711, before transferring to the Melbourne flight.
The accused drug trafficker is old enough to be a grandfather, but photographs showed rippling muscles under his Emporio Armani T-shirt.
Lee was frogmarched through the Melbourne Airport international terminal following the flight from Singapore.
He was taken through customs, with a lane set aside for him to speed up his departure.
An Australian Border Force officer asked him to take off his Balenciaga hat and glasses to check his photograph against his passport.
Lee, who spent most of his time in Hong Kong before moving to Bangkok, did not have any checked baggage.
Once he cleared customs he was taken into a side room, where he was formally charged.
He was not interviewed there and was taken in a secure convoy to custody.
Kylie McInnes appeared for the prosecution, in a short hearing in court 2 at the Melbourne Magistrates Court.
Lee’s legal aid barrister asked the court to ensure that he received his cholesterol medication, but declared a conflict of interest, which delayed the case.
The Royal Thai Police, led by their narcotics division, assisted with Lee’s extradition.
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