Smuggled motorcycles fuel a burgeoning black market
The trade in bikes brought in illegally from Thailand and other neighbouring countries is booming nationwide, including in the former capital, despite a restriction on their sale and use there
- Published: 6 Jan 2013 at 00.00
- Newspaper section: Spectrum
Unlike most Southeast Asian cities, Myanmar's former capital of Yangon is remarkably free of whining motorcycles and scooters _ thanks to a gang of thugs and a high-profile case of road rage. The ban was introduced a decade ago when a motorcycle gang known as the Scorpions, made up of young men from families of the elite and which had affiliations with the grandsons of the late dictator Ne Win, ventured near the motor convoy of Vice-Senior General Maung Aye in Yangon.
Myat San, a former political prisoner, said he heard the tale of what came next firsthand from one of the gang members who was detained in the same jail as him.
''They followed the car of Gen Maung Aye's daughter, not the convoy, because that car passed their bikes at high speed,'' Myan San recalled.
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