So if I get it right
In the 70s and 80s, heroin was made by poppy plants in place like the afghanistan or vietnam, thailand.
But the substance of the poppy plants were transformed in labs by italian, chinese or coriscan groups? Or didnthe afghan and asians already sold the product finished to the italians or other groups?
The Chinese, Italians, Corsicans, Vietnamese...mostly got the raw opium poppy product from the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia.
The Chinese were active in selling the finished product from the beginning.
The Vietnamese distributed the finished product as well since the late 80's whenever considerable Vietnamese communities were formed in Western cities.
The Corsicans sourced the base for heroin directly from Laos and refined it in labs around Corsica and Marseille. When the 'French Connection' came to an end, the Sicilians did the same in Sicily. The Sicilians also got a lot of the morphine base from Turkey and Lebanon.
In Afghanistan there are a lot of poppy fields, but Afghans don't seem to be involved in the direct wholesale of the finished product. I'm sure it does happen, but it doesn't seem to be endemic. The finished product that comes from the poppy fields in the Middle East is mostly distributed by a myriad of other groups: Turkish (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France), Kurdish (Netherlands, Germany, UK), Albanian (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, UK, France), Serbian (Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, France), Pakistani (mostly UK), Indian (UK, Canada), Chechen (Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States, Germany, France), Armenian (Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States, Spain, France), Georgian (Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States, Spain, France), Azerbaijani (Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States, France), Lebanese (Germany, Australia, Canada). I'm guessing here, but I assume it's mostly the groups from Turkey that refine the stuff and then it's passed on to the other groups.
The Russian Slavic and Jewish groups mostly seem to traffic in heroin from Southeast Asia. I think they source it from the Chinese.
