Narcotopia - In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel that Outwitted the CIA

The jagged mountains dividing China and Burma belong to the Wa, an indigenous group who have outwitted the CIA to create the world's mightiest narco-state, controlling more territory than Israel and with more troops than Sweden. Are they crime lords? Or visionaries?


Wa State has become a real nation with its own highways, anthems, schools and flags. Its leaders promise freedom, using profits from trafficking heroin and meth to attain what China's other frontier peoples, Tibetans and Uyghurs, can only dream of: a state of their own. Patrick Winn embarks on a risky journey of discovery, chasing clues about the forbidden republic from Thailand to Burma to the secretive Wa State itself.

About the author

Patrick Winn is an investigative journalist who covers rebellion and black markets in Southeast Asia. He has received a National Press Club award and is also a three-time winner of Amnesty International's Human Rights Press Awards. He is currently Asia correspondent for The World, broadcast on NPR member stations, and is the author of Hello, Shadowlands.

Product details

• Authors: Winn Patrick
• Publisher: Icon Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.02.2025
• EAN: 9781837732548
• ISBN: 978-1-83773-254-8
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 26 mm
• Weight: 312 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Social sciences, law, business > Law > Criminal law, criminal procedural law, criminology; Asia, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, LAW / Drugs & the Law, Politics & government, Drugs trade / drug trafficking, Politics and government