US police use 'beer campaign' to catch drug dealer

　　According to the Daily Telegraph on December 12, American officials have come up with a novel way of getting their man - printing the face of a notorious Burmese opium baron on styrofoam beer coolers to distribute in Bangkok's red-light district bars.

　　The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Thai police narcotics division are highlighting their $2 million reward for the capture of Wei Hsueh-kang, who is thought to frequent the districts.

　　Mr Wei is a guerrilla leader from the Wa tribe who has become the Golden Triangle's biggest drugs warlord. He operates in the mountains of Burma just over the border from Thailand and commands an army of 30,000 rebels armed with everything from artillery to anti-tank missiles and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapons.

　　The beer coolers - described as "informational products" - have been distributed in areas across Thailand in regions where drug trafficking is known to go on. Apart from Bangkok's bars the coolers - translated into ten different languages - have been seeded in border areas along drug smuggling routes.

　　A spokeswoman at the US embassy in Bangkok said the DEA-REWARDS.com website had already garnered several promising leads in Thailand and neighboring countries.