Koh Bak Kin the drug lord that sold heroin to Cosa Nostra

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"The mobsters called him Kim, like the brand of cigarettes, so it was easier to remember that complicated name"

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He did not have the same notoriety of Lucioli or Buscetta and yet the collaboration of Koh Bak Kin who became a collaborator of justice in the first half of the 1980s represents one of the key steps in the fight against organized crime.
Major supplier of heroin for almost a decade.
Its history is intertwined with the Palermo and Catania clans, with the Roman organized underworld and with the drug lord Khun Sa - king of the so-called Golden Triangle in the border areas between Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, known for the endless opium plantations .
Born on the island of Singapore on October 25, 1945, Kin began very soon to traffic drugs with the West.

In 1976 he was stopped at Fiumicino airport together with a teacher of Malaysian origin and 20 kilos of heroin. The news caused a sensation because the heroin market is still a growing phenomenon in the peninsula.
On the article of the Unit of November 7, 1976 we read: "the meticulous inspection of their luggage has to discover the large quantity of heroin: it is a "third class" drug called Chinese. A type of heroin which seems to have recently invaded the world market. Its value would amount to 4 billion (little more 20 milions euro).

The roman and national press focused on that "self-proclaimed businessman from Singapore", apparently out of nowhere, but in reality already at the center of trade between Thailand and Europe and in particular Italy, France and Rome.
However, no link with organized crime is demonstrated and the thirty-year-old Koh Bak Kin, who does not speak and is sentenced to 6 years in prison.
The doors of the maxi-prison in Sulmona open for him where the Singaporean trafficker will be able to get in touch with leading figures in organized crime, among which the drug trafficker Gaspare Mutolo emerges, linked to the Riccobono clan and a trusted man of Totò Riina.
With Kin he not only shares the cell but also the passion for painting and obviously drug trafficking.
Even though neither spoke the other's language. Mutolo took a liking to Kin.
Through meals eaten together and small gestures of generosity, they began to build the most precious asset in the treacherous world of international drug trafficking: the trust. When Kin had learned enough Italian to talk business, he said to Mutolo: "Gaspare, promise me As soon as you get out, call me and I'll get you all the drugs you need."(1)
Will be the "Chinese" the first to come out in 1980, not before having established ties with members of the Roman underworld such as Gianfranco Urbani aka the panther. As reported by the pentito Maurizio Abbatino, Kin supplied all the Roman underworld with heroin.
After the Sulmona experience for Koh Bak Kin the golden age begins, becoming the reference point for drug dealing on several fronts.
On the other hand, his back is well covered: through Mutolo he enjoys the support of Riina, the Riccobonos and the Santapaola clan from Catania; together with Urbani he fills Rome with heroin and in the East he enjoys the coverage of Khun Sa aka Chan Shee Fu, called the Opium King.
But the anti-mafia pool led by Antonino Caponetto, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino begins to investigate Kin's billionaire trafficking.
For the "Chinese" it's the beginning of the end.
I kept in touch with Koh Bak Kin, Mutolo recounts in a 2013 interview, and the others invested through me. Everyone put in what they had, 20 million, 50 million, 100 million. It didn't matter. The more you invested, the more you earned.
at first the drug (heroin) was sent to America where the families paid me 160 million lire (700K euros) per kilo.
After all, in Thailand there were no problems getting mofina and the product was better there.
large quantities entered Italy by sea or by air, the turnover grows dramatically and so the clam mafia decides to raise the bar. It is April 4, 1983 when the ship Alexandros sails from Greece to Thailand and then back and reaching the suez channel on May 24, it is monitored and as soon as it arrives in Port Said it is searched by the Egyptian police, finding in the hold "250 kg of heroin, 10 kg of basic morphine but the suspicion is that the ship has already been lightened by half of the load, i.e. 500 kg, the largest lot traded in Italy for a record value of 27 billion lire (42 milions euros).(2)
On board the boat Fioravante Palestini, a famous bodybuilder, was arrested who was sentenced to 25 years and served 20 until 2003 when he obtained extradition to Italy. It was precisely with Palestini's arrest that Giovanni Falcone set out on the trail of Kin, issuing an international arrest warrant against him on 12 July 1983. Hunted down the streets of Bankock, the Singaporean trafficker surrenders himself to the Italian authorities a month later. In the following autumn, alone and abandoned by everyone, the "Chinese" decides to cooperate.

Falcone immediately told me politely and directly that they had taken the ship.
"But what am I a shipowner?" I joked
"No Koh Bak Kin's Drug Ship"
"But I don't know any Koh Bak Kin- I said laughing. I was lying. of course.(3)
Gaspare Mutolo had little to joke about in that summer of 1983 before he became a collaborator in 1991. Koh Bak Kin's testimony contained in 8 folders of the maxi trial serves to highlight how the Sicilian Mafia was deeply involved in drug trafficking and remove the romantic aura from don vito corleone.Kin, after taking 8 years, leaves the scene with the end of the process in 1992.One of the latest news about him concerns his participation in the strike of the hundred pentiti to obtain greater protection from the State. Nothing has been known about him since 1992.


(1)John Dickie - Mafia Republic:Cosa Nostra,Camorra e Ndrangheta dal 1946 ad oggi.
(2)Yari Salvetella - Roma,L'Impero del Crimine.
(3)Gaspare Mutolo con Anna Vinci - La Mafia non lascia tempo.