Although the American ambassador to Thailand called him "the worst enemy the world has", he successfully co-opted the support of both the Thai and Burmese governments at various times.

After the American Drug Enforcement Administration uncovered and broke the link between Khun Sa and his foreign brokers, he "surrendered" to the Burmese government in 1996, disbanding his army and moving to Yangon with his wealth and mistresses.

After his retirement some of his forces refused to surrender and continued fighting the government, but he engaged in "legitimate" business projects, especially mining and construction.

[4] He received no formal education but had military training as a soldier with Chinese Nationalist forces that had fled into Burma after the victory of Mao's Communists in 1949.

Although his stepbrothers were sent to missionary schools, the only formal education that Khun Sa received was as a boy, when he spent a few years as a Buddhist novice, and for the rest of his life he remained functionally illiterate.

[2] In the early 1950s he received some basic military training from the Kuomintang, which had fled into the border regions of Burma from Yunnan upon its defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

In return for fighting local Shan rebels, the government allowed him to use their land and roads to grow and trade opium and heroin.

[9] In 1969, delegates from a local ethnic rebel group, the Shan State Army, began to hold secret talks with Khun Sa, attempting to persuade him to change sides and join them.

He expressed interest, but details of the meeting were discovered by the Burmese army, and he was arrested On October 29, 1969, at Heho Airport in Taunggyi while returning from a business trip in Tachilek, near the Thai border.

A good leader must be able to take advantage of every change and utilize it.”[12] After Khun Sa's arrest his militia unit dissolved,[13] but his more loyal followers went underground, and in 1973 abducted two Soviet doctors from a hospital in Taunggyi, where they had been working.

[11] After his release Khun Sa maintained a good relationship with Chomanan, and in 1981 secretly contributed $50,000 US to support him in a Thai election campaign.

The share of heroin sold in New York originating from the Golden Triangle rose from 5% to 80% during this period, and Khun Sa was responsible for 45% of that trade.

[7] During the height of his power, in the 1980s, Khun Sa controlled 70% of the opium production in Burma, and built a large-scale infrastructure of heroin refining factories to dominate the market for that drug.

[11] After his release Khun Sa went underground, and in 1976 rejoined and reformed his forces in Ban Hin Taek, in northern Thailand, close to the border with Burma.

The owners of the local heroin refineries were from Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and paid Khun Sa in exchange for the protection of his army.

In October 1981 a 39-man unit of Thai Rangers and local rebel guerillas attempted to assassinate Khun Sa at the insistence of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

He relocated his base of operations to the border town of Homein, established a local heroin-refining industry, and resumed a working relationship with the Burmese military and intelligence services, who again tolerated his presence in return for fighting other ethnic and communist rebels.

"[27] In September 1989, when American photojournalist Karen Petersen interviewed the General for People magazine at his camp in Ner Mone, Shan State, he claimed he had a total army of 12,000 men.

[2] Following his indictment, he was interviewed by Canadian journalist Patricia Elliott at his base, accompanied by photojournalist Subin Kheunkaew, for the Bangkok Post.

Part of this was due to the opening of new trade routes for heroin that ran from Yunnan to ports in southeastern China, which reduced his importance as a middleman for the drug along the Thai border.

[32] After his front man within the Mong Tai Army, his longtime subordinate, Chairman Moh Heng, died of cancer in 1991, his control over the organization began to weaken.

[15] Khun Sa exported his heroin through a network of underworld contacts and brokers based in Thailand, Yunnan, Macao, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Despite the Burmese leadership's public attitude towards Khun Sa, they understood that he had long controlled Burma's most lucrative export crop[7] (estimated at $600 million US per year in 1997),[33] and by the 1990s he had co-opted many of the most high-ranking military leaders in the country.

[7] Khun Sa surrendered to the Burmese government on January 5, 1996, gave up control of his army, and moved to Rangoon with a large fortune[16] and four young Shan mistresses.

[15] Soon after he died, in November 2007, a memorial was held for Khun Sa in his former stronghold in Thailand, Thoed Thai, close to the Myanmar border.

Asked why they honoured Khun Sa, the local people said that he helped the town to develop: he built the first paved roads in the area, the first school, and a well-equipped, 60-bed hospital[36] staffed by Chinese doctors.

At the time of his death, in 2007, his favorite son was running a hotel and casino in the border town of Tachilek, while one of his daughters was a well-established businesswoman in Mandalay.

[34] Khun Sa is mentioned in Japanese manga and anime Black Lagoon, for his role on the drug trade in Southeast Asia as well as one of his subordinates being targeted by the NSA.