The alleged leader of an Asian drug syndicate who has been compared to drug lords Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Pablo Escobar is fighting extradition to Australia, saying he would not get a fair trial here.
Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian national, was arrested in January at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport at the request of the Australian Federal Police while in transit from Taiwan to Canada.
He has denied wrongdoing and is contesting extradition, with his lawyer arguing that Australian authorities essentially engineered his expulsion from Taiwan to Canada on a flight with a stopover in the Netherlands so he could be nabbed there.
The 57-year-old is wanted in Australia for his connection to the AFP-led Operation Volante, which dismantled a global crime syndicate operating in five countries.
According to the AFP, the operation resulted in the arrest of 27 people for importing and trafficking "substantial quantities" of heroin and methamphetamine into Australia in 2013.
While Australia has extradition treaties with both the Netherlands and Canada, Mr Tse's lawyer argued in court on Tuesday that Dutch extradition policies were more advantageous for Australian law enforcement.
He asked judges to investigate the circumstances of the arrest before deciding on extradition.
Prosecutors said the circumstances of Mr Tse's expulsion from Taiwan were not relevant.
Mr Tse spoke briefly in court to protest his innocence.
"Mass media are calling me a drug kingpin but that is not true," ANP news agency quoted him as telling the judges through interpreters.
He added that he was scared Australian judges would be biased against him.
The Rotterdam court is expected on July 2 to rule on the extradition request or order additional investigations into the circumstances of Mr Tse's arrest.
Syndicate known as The Company
Australian investigators say Mr Tse's syndicate, known to its members as The Company, dominates the $90 billion-a-year Asia-Pacific drug trade.
Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative for the UN drugs agency UNODC, told Reuters in 2019 that Mr Tse was in the league of El Chapo or maybe Pablo Escobar — referring to Latin America's most notorious drug lords.
Authorities also refer to the syndicate as Sam Gor — or Brother Number Three in Cantonese — after one of Mr Tse's nicknames, Reuters reported at the time.
Reuters was unable to contact Mr Tse for the 2019 report, which described Mr Tse as "Asia's El Chapo".
The AFP accuses Mr Tse of being "the senior leader of the Sam Gor syndicate".
The group has "been connected with or directly involved in at least 13 cases" of drug trafficking since January 2015, according to the documents cited by Reuters.
ABC/Reuters
