The flower fields stretch out from the mountain village along most every road — fluttering patchworks of white and pink and purple.

花田沿着这座山村的每条道路向外蔓延——白色、粉红色和紫色的花丛随风舞动。

The beauty in this corner of Shan State, in northeastern Myanmar, might seem a respite from the country’s brutal civil war. Instead the blooms are a symptom: It is all opium poppy in these fields, and Myanmar again ranks as the world’s biggest exporter of the raw material to make heroin and other opiates. And that’s just the beginning.

在缅甸东北部掸邦一角的这幅美景看上去仿佛从该国残酷的内战中跳脱了出来。然而并非如此，这些盛开的花朵是一种不良的症状：田地里种的都是罂粟，缅甸再次成为世界上最大的海洛因和其他鸦片制剂原料出口国。而这仅仅是个开始。

Since descending into a full-blown civil conflict nearly four years ago, after the military overthrew the elected government, Myanmar has cemented its status as a hotbed of transnational crime. It is a playground for warlords, arms dealers, human traffickers, poachers, drug syndicates and generals wanted by international courts.

近四年前，在军方推翻民选政府后，缅甸陷入全面的国内冲突，导致该国成为跨国犯罪温床。如今，这里是军阀、军火商、人贩子、偷猎者、贩毒集团和被国际法庭通缉的将军们的游乐场。

Myanmar is now the biggest nexus of organized crime on the planet, according to the Global Organized Crime Index.

根据全球有组织犯罪指数，缅甸现在是全球最大的有组织犯罪中心。

The criminality flourishing in Myanmar’s fertile soil carries disastrous consequences for its 55 million people. It is also spreading the fruits of transgression across the globe. With more than half of the country battle-struck following the military coup in February 2021 that unseated the civilian authority of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar is racking up dubious superlatives.

在缅甸肥沃的土地上，猖獗的犯罪活动给该国5500万人民带来了灾难性的后果。它还将违法犯罪的成果传播到全球各地。2021年2月，缅甸发生军事政变，昂山素季的文职政府被推翻，全国一半以上的地区陷入战乱。

It is now the world’s largest producer of opium and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine, ketamine and fentanyl. Concocted with precursor chemicals from neighboring China and India, tablets made in Myanmar feed habits as far away as Australia. With factories in overdrive and international law enforcement overwhelmed, street prices of these drugs are alarmingly cheap.

如今缅甸是世界上最大的鸦片生产国，也是世界上最大的合成毒品（包括甲基苯丙胺、氯胺酮和芬太尼）生产国之一。利用来自邻国中国和印度的前体化学物质制成的药片，缅甸满足了远至澳大利亚的瘾君子的毒瘾。制毒工厂的超负荷生产以及国际执法部门的无力应对令这些毒品的街头价格低得惊人。

多年来，农民们在远离某些政府的山区和山谷里种植罂粟。现在，种植者在村子里公开种植罂粟花。切开罂粟荚，提取里面的生鸦片。

Myanmar is not just a narco-state. It is also thought to be the world’s largest exporter of certain heavy rare earth elements that power clean energy worldwide. In battlefields turned toxic wastelands, workers dig in illegal mines, then dispatch the rare earths to China along old smuggling routes. The Southeast Asian nation is also home to the best jade and ruby on the planet, much of it extracted by young men addicted to the same drugs that are flooding the global market. Poachers scour Myanmar’s forests for endangered wildlife and timber, too, often bound for China.

缅甸不仅仅是一个毒品国家，还被认为是某些重稀土元素的全球最大出口国，这些元素为全球清洁能源提供动力。在战场演化而来的有毒废墟上，工人们进行着非法开采，然后沿着古老的走私路线，将稀土运往中国。这个东南亚国家还拥有地球上最好的玉石和红宝石，其中大部分是由吸毒成瘾的年轻人开采，他们使用的毒品与充斥全球市场的那些别无二致。偷猎盗伐者还在缅甸的森林里搜寻濒危野生动物和木材，所得通常会运往中国。

The war in Myanmar is expanding the reach of Chinese criminal syndicates, which are operating with impunity and monopolistic ambition in the region, despite occasional crackdowns by Beijing. Chinese weapons flow both to the ruling junta and to the resistance forces that are fighting it.

缅甸战争扩大了中国犯罪集团的影响范围。尽管中国政府偶尔会进行打击，但这些犯罪集团在该地区肆无忌惮地开展活动，并怀着称霸一方的野心。中国的武器既流向执政的军政府，也流向与之作战的抵抗力量。

In Myanmar’s borderlands, criminal networks that unite Chinese kingpins with ethnic warlords are kidnapping people from all over the globe to toil in factories that scam people online. International police organizations say that this online fraud has bilked billions of dollars from retirees and lonely hearts in the United States, China, Europe and beyond.

在缅甸边境地区，由中国毒枭和少数民族武装组织组成的犯罪网络正在绑架来自全球各地的人，让他们在园区里从事网络诈骗。国际警察组织称，这种网络诈骗已从美国、中国、欧洲和其他国家的退休人员和孤独的人手中骗取了数十亿美元。

“Organized crime has a vested interest in conflict continuing because it thrives in that environment,” said Masood Karimipour, the regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or U.N.O.D.C. “And the longer the conflict goes on, the more territory falls under the control or influence of parties who stand to profit.”

“有组织犯罪会在冲突的持续中获益，因为它在这种环境中壮大，”联合国毒品和犯罪问题办公室（简称UNODC）东南亚和太平洋地区代表马苏德·卡里米普尔说。“冲突持续越久，就会有越多地方被那些有利可图的势力的掌控或影响。”

“The profits,” he added, “are from truly horrifying things that are destroying lives in Myanmar and in many other countries.”

他还表示，“这些利润来自于真正可怕的事情，这些事情正在摧毁缅甸和许多其他国家的人的生活。”

New York Times reporting within Myanmar over the past few years of intensifying war has laid bare how the country’s descent into failed statehood is stoking conflict at home and exporting misery, dependency and corruption across continents.

《纽约时报》在过去几年中报道了缅甸国内战事的加剧，从中可以清楚地看到，这个国家的瘫痪如何助长国内的冲突，并将苦难、物质依赖和腐败输出到世界各地。

These are the biggest cogs in Myanmar’s military-industrial crime complex:

这些都是缅甸军事工业犯罪机器中最大的齿轮：

Opium in the Open

明目张胆的鸦片

In the Shan Hills of Myanmar, the opium poppy is called “the peace flower.”

在缅甸的掸邦山区，罂粟被称为“和平之花”。

The name is an irony: There has not been true peace in Shan State for decades. Over the years, more than a dozen ethnic guerrilla groups have fought the Myanmar military — and each other — for dominance, not only of the territory but of the drug trade, too.

这个名字颇具讽刺意味：几十年来，掸邦从未有过真正的和平。多年来，十多个民族游击队为了争夺地盘与缅甸军方以及彼此作战，争夺的不只是领地，还有毒品贸易。

This planting season, opium farming in Pekon Township in Shan State reached a troubling milestone. For years, farmers grew their poppies in mountains and valleys, away from the authorities that would, sometimes at gunpoint, impose taxes, demand a cut of the crop or even destroy their fields.

在这个种植季，掸邦北孔镇的鸦片种植达到了一个令人不安的里程碑。多年来，农民们在远离政府的高山和峡谷中种植罂粟，过去政府有时会用枪指着他们，向他们征收税款，要求分成，甚至摧毁他们的田地。

Today, these growers cultivate opium flowers openly in their villages. Nourished by complex irrigation systems, fields of poppies sway beside churches, temples, police stations and town halls. Farmers harvest the oozing opium resin without fear of getting caught.

如今，这些种植者在自己的村庄里公开种植罂粟。在复杂灌溉系统的滋养下，罂粟花在教堂、寺庙、警察局和镇政府旁摇曳。农民们可以放心地采收渗出的鸦片树脂，不必担心被抓。

“Now there is no government, no military, so we don’t have to hide,” said Daw Hla Win, as she returned from tending her poppies in a field across the street from her house. “It’s the best time ever for opium.”

“现在没有政府，没有军队，所以我们不用躲躲藏藏，”赫莱温女士（音）从她家街对面的田里收割罂粟回来时说。“现在种鸦片再好不过了。”

因缅甸内战而背井离乡的工人在北孔镇一个鸦片种植园干活。如今农民可以放心地采收鸦片，不必担心被抓。罂粟花田由复杂的灌溉系统滋养。

Jungle Drug Labs

丛林毒品实验室

A bottle of beer in Myanmar costs about $1. A little pink pill, a potent combination of methamphetamine and caffeine known as yaba, goes for less than 25 cents.

在缅甸，一瓶啤酒的价格约为1美元，而一粒粉红色的“雅巴”药丸——甲基苯丙胺和咖啡因的强效组合——价格不到25美分。

Last year, governments in East and Southeast Asia seized a record 190 tons of methamphetamine, the U.N.O.D.C. said, but its street price dropped as jungle labs in Shan State went into overdrive.

UNODC称，去年，东亚和东南亚各国政府缉获了创纪录的190吨甲基苯丙胺，但由于掸邦的丛林实验室夜以继日的生产，它的街头价格还下跌了。

The making of synthetic drugs in Myanmar predates the coup and ensuing civil war. Warlords in certain self-administered regions of Shan State have long overseen drug economies, with the military and its proxies taking a cut of the profits. Air force helicopters would fly packets of pills and chunks of crystal methamphetamine to cities and ports for distribution overseas, former pilots said.

缅甸的合成毒品制造早在政变和随后的内战之前就开始了。长期以来，掸邦某些自治地区的武装组织一直在掌控毒品经济，军方及其代理人从利润中分一杯羹。前飞行员称，空军直升机会将一包包药丸和一块块冰毒空运到城市和港口，再分销到海外。

The intensity of workshops churning out synthetic drugs has reached a new high since the army takeover in Myanmar, drug trade monitors and law enforcers say. Ethnic armed groups in Shan State have begun producing new club drugs, such as “happy water” and lollipops made with a cocktail that includes ketamine, MDMA and methamphetamine.

毒品贸易监督员和执法人员称，自缅甸军队接管政权以来，制造合成毒品的作坊达到了一个新的高度。掸邦的民族武装组织已经开始生产新型夜店毒品，如用氯胺酮、摇头丸和甲基苯丙胺混合制成的“快乐水”和棒棒糖。

Scam Mills With Global Reach

触及全球的诈骗园区

On Myanmar’s border with Thailand, in what was once dense jungle, Ko Kyaw Htay worked on the third floor of a windowless boiler room, huddled over his phone, he recalled. In 12-hour shifts, he and about 40 others sat at plastic tables, all absorbed in online conversations, he said, with people across the world: China, Mexico, Japan, Italy, India and the United States.

高觉泰（音）回忆说，在缅甸与泰国边境曾是一片茂密丛林的地方，他曾在一个没有窗户的锅炉房三楼紧紧握着手机工作。他说，他和其他大约40人轮班工作12小时，坐在塑料桌旁全神贯注地与世界各地——中国、墨西哥、日本、意大利、印度和美国——的人网上聊天。

生鸦片。“人生无常，”一位种植罂粟的农民说。“我们得尽可能多地赚钱。”躲避战乱的人在掸邦建立的一座营地遭到军方空袭。现在该地区大部分地方由反政府武装控制。

Mr. Kyaw Htay’s marks were in France, and he used Google Translate to build relationships. “You’re so beautiful,” he wrote to widows, liberally adding heart emojis. Or he made his profile photo that of a longhaired Asian woman and, in deliberately broken French, wooed older men eager for love.

高觉泰的目标在法国，他使用谷歌翻译来和人建立关系。他会给丧夫的女性发信息说：“你太美了，”还不时地加上心形表情符号。有时他的个人资料照片是一位长发飘飘的亚洲女性，故意用蹩脚的法语引诱渴望爱情的年长男性。

The online romances soon gave way to talk of investments. In one case earlier this year, Mr. Kyaw Htay said he told a widow from southern France that they should, as a couple, invest in a cryptocurrency-backed housing development. She said “yes.”

网络恋情很快换成了投资话题。高觉泰说，在今年早些时候的一次诈骗中，他告诉一位来自法国南部的寡妇，他们应该作为伴侣一起投资一个加密货币支持的住房开发项目。她说“好的”。

In a good month, Mr. Kyaw Htay said, he scammed as much as 80,000 euros ($83,000) out of victims. He was paid about $445 a month for his work, he said, a good salary in post-coup Myanmar. Unlike the foreigners in the room with him — four Africans, seven Indians and five Chinese — he had come willingly to this border enclave run by a Chinese crime syndicate.

高觉泰说，好的时候一个月下来能从受害者身上骗取高达8万欧元（约合60万人民币）。他说，他的月薪约为445美元，这在政变后的缅甸是一笔不错的收入。他是自愿来到这片由中国犯罪团伙经营的边境园区的，这跟和他同屋的外国人——四名非洲人、七名印度人和五名中国人——有所不同。

The United Nations estimated last year that at least 120,000 foreigners were being forced into the cybercrime and online gambling industries in Myanmar. Many had been duped by ads promising clerical, technical or customer service jobs in Southeast Asia. An Interpol operation last year found people from 22 countries who had been compelled to work in cybercrime hubs in Myanmar. Others were kidnapped off the streets in China and taken by gunpoint to enclaves run by ethnic warlords and Chinese crime gangs, survivors said.

据联合国去年估计，至少有12万外国人被迫在缅甸从事网络犯罪和网络赌博行业。许多人都是被承诺在东南亚提供文秘、技术或客户服务工作的广告所骗。国际刑警组织去年的一次行动发现，来自22个国家的人被迫在缅甸的网络犯罪园区工作。幸存者说，还有一些人在中国街头被绑架，然后被枪指着带到民族武装组织和中国犯罪团伙控制的园区。

2019年，一名雅巴毒贩在掸邦北部的腊戍出售药丸。这些药丸由甲基苯丙胺和咖啡因混合制成，每颗价格不到25美分。在腊戍注射和吸食毒品。

While ethnic militia commanders aligned with the military have long operated with impunity in certain fiefs in Shan State and Karen State, in the east, new high-rise buildings and scam warehouses have sprouted since the coup. The language of such commerce, more than a dozen people who have worked in these cybercrime and casino enclaves say, is mostly Mandarin.

在掸邦和克伦邦的某些地区，与军方结盟的民族武装组织指挥官多年来一直横行霸道，而东部地区是自政变以来开始出现新的高层建筑和诈骗基地。十多名曾在这些网络犯罪和赌场园区工作过的人说，这些地方的生意使用的语言主要是普通话。

Last year, more than 40,000 Chinese people were detained in Myanmar over scams and deported to China. A few Chinese kingpins have been apprehended. Chinese nationals were killed in a shootout at one compound used by scammers on the border with Myanmar, Chinese and Myanmar state media reported.

去年，4万多名中国人在缅甸因诈骗被拘留并遣送回国。一些中国团伙头目被捕。据中国和缅甸官方媒体报道，在与缅甸接壤的边境地区，多名中国公民在骗子使用的一处园区发生的枪战中丧生。

Myanmar citizens who worked in the scam centers say that because of a Chinese government crackdown, the business model is shifting away from targeting Chinese victims to those in America and Europe. The bosses of scam rings are also increasingly using deepfake images and ransomware to extort money out of victims, the workers said.

在诈骗中心工作过的缅甸公民说，由于中国政府的打击，诈骗中心的业务模式正在从针对中国受害者转向针对美国和欧洲的受害者。这些人说，诈骗团伙的头目也越来越多地使用深度伪造图片和勒索软件来榨取受害者的钱财。

“These scam centers are horror shows on a massive scale,” said Mr. Karimipour of the U.N.O.D.C.

UNODC的卡里米普尔说：“这些诈骗中心是一场大规模的恐怖秀。”

The Thai government has cut off electricity and the internet to scam factories and online gambling dens across the river border. But even if a sin city is targeted, another will soon take its place.

泰国政府切断了河对岸诈骗园区和网络赌博窝点的电力和网络。但是，打击了一座罪恶之城，另一座会迅速取而代之。

雅巴有时会装在西瓜包装箱里运输。有时会用驮畜在丛林里运输包括毒品在内的货物。

After eight months, Mr. Kyaw Htay said he was no longer comfortable defrauding French retirees. The old woman to whom he had sold the idea of crypto-backed real estate wrote of her grief over her husband’s death. Shyly, she professed her love for the stranger who had first contacted her by WhatsApp. She had handed over her savings for the scheme, around 15,000 euros. She lost it all.

八个月后，高觉泰说他不愿意继续欺骗法国退休人士了。他曾向一位老妇人兜售加密货币支持的房地产，她在信中诉说了自己对丈夫去世的悲痛。她羞涩地向这个最初通过WhatsApp联系她的陌生人表白了爱意。她拿出了自己的积蓄，将大约1.5万欧元（约合11万人民币）投入该项目。她失去了一切。

“Her trust in me and her optimism still haunt me,” said Mr. Kyaw Htay, who spoke with The Times this fall after he fled the scam warehouse. “I deeply regret what I did.”

“我至今还老是想起她对我的信任和她的乐观，”高觉泰说，他在今年秋天逃离诈骗园区后接受了时报的采访。“我对自己的所作所为非常后悔。”

An All-Out Mining Rush

倾尽一切的采矿热潮

Three months before the military coup, the pine forests around Pangwa in Kachin State, in Myanmar’s north, had 15 rare earth mines. Three months after the putsch, there were five times as many, residents said.

军事政变三个月前，缅甸北部克钦邦邦瓦周围的松树林中有15个稀土矿。居民们说，政变三个月后，稀土矿的数量增加了五倍。

Last year, Myanmar was believed to be the world’s largest exporter of certain heavy rare earths, including dysprosium and terbium, which are used in items like electric vehicles and wind turbines. (Although there are no reliable official figures for Myanmar’s mining output, the environmental watchdog Global Witness found 2023 Chinese customs data indicating that imports from Myanmar were larger than China’s own domestic mining quota.)

去年，缅甸被认为是世界上某些重稀土的最大出口国，这些稀土包括镝和铽，用于电动汽车和风力涡轮机等产品。(虽然没有可靠的官方数据显示缅甸的采矿产量，但环境监督机构全球见证组织发现，2023年的中国海关数据显示，从缅甸进口的稀土超过了中国国内的采矿配额）。

China has monopolized the industry for processing rare earths. Before the coup, Myanmar’s elected government tried to control or ban their export because of concerns over the environmental damage from mining. But after Western governments imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military, the generals, who have been backed by Beijing, needed a new money source.

中国垄断了稀土加工行业。政变前，缅甸民选政府曾试图控制或禁止稀土出口，因为他们担心开采会破坏环境。但在西方政府对缅甸军方实施制裁后，得到北京支持的缅甸将军们需要新的资金来源。

The heart of Myanmar’s rare earths mining operations was in the hands of an ethnic Kachin militia tied to the junta. With no environmental or labor safeguards in place, Pangwa, on the border with China, became gripped by high-intensity mining, locals said.

缅甸稀土开采业务的核心掌握在与军政府有联系的克钦族民兵手中。当地人说，由于没有任何环境或劳工保障措施，与中国接壤的邦瓦地区出现了高强度采矿热潮。

Hundreds of Chinese mine bosses descended, as did Chinese technicians adept at isolating the rare earths from the soil. Residents noted that within a few months, nearly all of Pangwa’s pine forests were uprooted, except for a clump of trees in a cemetery where the local militia boss’s grandparents were buried.

数以百计中国矿业老板和善于从土壤中分离稀土的中国技术人员来到这里。居民们注意到，几个月内，邦瓦的松树林几乎全部被连根拔起，只有安葬着当地民兵头目祖父母的墓地有一丛树木。

2023年，仰光国际机场，两名警察中间是五名被控电信和网络诈骗的嫌疑人。

Pangwa, like two other mining towns, has been destroyed, residents said. U San Hlaing worked the mines, his bare hands blistered and burned from the corrosive acid used in the extraction process. The air was full of dust, and he developed a constant, hacking cough. To make it through the long days spent digging pits and lugging chemicals, Mr. San Hlaing resorted to yaba, as did most miners.

居民们说，邦瓦和其他两个采矿城镇一样，已被摧毁。尤桑莱（音）在矿上工作，他的双手被开采过程中使用的腐蚀性酸液烫伤，起了水泡。灰尘漫天，他经常咳嗽。为了熬过挖坑和搬运化学品的漫长日子，尤桑莱和大多数矿工一样服用“雅巴”。

“It’s a bad cycle because most of the money we earn goes to buying more drugs,” he said. “Work destroys our health, and drugs destroy our lives.”

“这是一个恶性循环，因为我们赚的大部分钱都用来买毒品，”他说。“工作毁了我们的健康，毒品毁了我们的生活。”

Toxic chemicals have infiltrated the soil, environmentalists said. Locals are scared to drink the water. Landslides are another constant threat in both these and other types of mines in Kachin State, where the illegal excavation of jade kills scores of wildcat miners a year.

环保人士称，有毒化学物质已经渗入土壤。当地人不敢喝水。山体滑坡是包括这些矿在内的克钦邦各类矿场面临的另一个长期威胁，而非法挖掘玉石每年会导致数十名野外采矿者丧生。

In October, the Kachin Independence Army, a member of the rebel alliance aiming to oust the military, captured Pangwa. Anti-junta forces now control the entire China-Kachin boundary, through which rare earths, timber, jade and other treasures are smuggled.

10月，旨在推翻军政府的反叛联盟成员克钦独立军占领了邦瓦。叛军现在控制着整个中克边界，稀土、木材、玉石和其他珍宝都通过这里走私。

For a few weeks after the rebels’ victory, Pangwa residents said, rare earth mining ceased. Chinese workers returned home. But other areas that had been under the control of the Kachin resistance were also churned up for rare earth mining, residents say. Satellite imagery shows the scarring of this land.

邦瓦居民说，叛军获胜后的几个星期里，稀土开采停止了。中国工人回国了。但居民们说，克钦抵抗运动控制下的其他地区也被稀土开采搅得鸡犬不宁。卫星图像显示了这片土地的累累伤痕。

“We are just experimenting,” said Col. Naw Bu, a Kachin Independence Organization spokesman. “If we decide to pursue this for business purposes, we will ensure that public health is not affected.”

“我们现在只是试验阶段，”克钦独立组织发言人诺布上校（音）表示。“如果我们决定出于商业目的这样做，我们将确保公众健康不受影响。”

Colonel Naw Bu said that negotiations with Chinese businessmen on regulated rare earth mining were underway but that no official permission had been granted. This month, a Kachin delegation went to China for talks.

他表示正在与中国商人就稀土开采监管问题进行谈判，但尚未做出正式审批。本月，一个克钦代表团前往中国进行会谈。

By the end of last month, Pangwa residents said, some mining had already resumed. Myanmar rare earths, extracted at great human cost, are again entering the global supply chain to drive the green revolution.

邦瓦居民说，到上个月底，一些采矿活动已经恢复。缅甸以巨大的人力成本开采的稀土再次进入全球供应链，推动绿色革命。