LSE is famous for producing dynamic, entrepreneurial commercially-aware graduates. Our endless fascination with alumni like Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of the easy empire, indicates that we are keen to live up to this reputation for excellence. But ‘entrepreneurs’ aren’t always the best role models.

Consider Zhang Qifu, now in his 80s, a Burmese-born ethnic Chinese better known by the pseudonym ‘Khun Sa’, or ‘prosperous prince’. Like any good businessman, Khun Sa made something out of nothing by taking advantage of prevailing conditions, working his way to a position of dominance and eventually securing large profits for himself and his associates. But his product wasn’t budget air travel or Internet access – it was opiates, mainly heroin, for supply to the global illicit drugs market.

Khun Sa started out as an anti-communist guerrilla in the mountainous region of Shan State, near the Chinese border. By the early ‘60s, he had used his charisma and leadership ability to recruit a personal army of several hundred men. Eventually, he caught the attention of the central government, who decided to arm him in the fight against communist insurgents. Khun Sa had more on his mind than ideology, however; he used his new-found power and influence to set up a quasi-independent fiefdom, moving into opium and heroin production.

With the arrest of his main competitor, Lo Hsin Han, in 1967, Khun Sa achieved an effective monopoly on drug production and trafficking routes to neighbouring countries. After a short setback at the hands of the law in the late ‘60s, Khun Sa returned to the Golden Triangle to continue building his drug empire. By this time, Southeast Asian heroin accounted for almost 70 per cent of global production, and Khun Sa quickly established himself as the region’s greatest and most feared trafficker.

At the height of his power in the 1980s, Khun Sa had a personal army of 3,000 with a further 20,000 under his sway, 10 heroin refineries, and a luxurious dwelling, known as the ‘White House’ – an ironic tribute to a centre of ‘legitimate’ power, which testified both to his position of pre-eminence and  to the extent of his ego.

Few believed his ideological claims: that he was a Shan freedom fighter who taxed opium to raise funds for a revolutionary struggle. He had a poor reputation with the locals, who complained that his repressive rule was no better than that of the much-despised military regime. But Khun Sa showed no remorse; by the end of the decade, Myanmar’s opium production had risen to almost 3000 tonnes, from just eight tonnes in the 1930s, and he controlled seventy-five per cent of it. Not surprisingly, he was earning millions in profit, which he invested in property in Thailand and Hong Kong – whilst paying his soldiers just enough to buy food and cigarettes.

It wasn’t long before the US government became concerned about Khun Sa’s exploits. By the early ‘90s, eighty per cent of the heroin entering the veins of New York City addicts originated in Southeast Asia, up from only five per cent in the previous decade. Soon Khun Sa had a two million dollar reward on his head, set by the US government, and found himself cornered – by the military regime, rival militant groups and some mutinous elements in his own ranks. In 1996, he decided it was time to pack it in – but only on condition of amnesty from the military regime, which he managed to secure by bribing a top official.

And so the situation remains; Khun Sa is safe from prosecution, and the military regime flatly refuses to extradite him to face justice overseas, citing issues of national integrity and pride, while the real reason is probably because Khun Sa knows far too much about their own involvement in drug trafficking. Khun Sa may not have the power he once had, but he still has considerable investments. All in all, he’s doing pretty well for a man with such an infamous past.

Khun Sa is the secretive associate of an extremely secretive regime, so it’s impossible to know how he feels about his own career. An eye-witness report some years ago, from a meeting with old allies, suggests he was far from content: “I want to die”, said a crippled, elderly Khun Sa to his stunned audience, “the quicker the better”, apparently lamenting his decision to surrender in 1996.