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TWO young Burmese Muslims are hanging out, wearing neat, bright clothes and Ray-Ban sunglasses with golden hand chains. Around them are bustling Chinese and Burmese Muslims stealthily unwrapping pieces of cloth to reveal their wares of jade.

Amid the bustle, at the corner of the market in this Chinese town near with border with Burma, a thirty-something Burmese Muslim named Bushi sits in his small store and sells seasonal fruits on the street.

He was once like the traders, but last year he lost nearly all of his property. He has no friends, no money. ''No one wants to talk to me,'' he says. ''I have been 'hkali'. In Burmese Muslim usage, 'hkali' means zero or nil.

Bushi, whose family originally hails from western Arakan (Rahkaine) state then moved to Rangoon three decades ago, moved to China 13 years ago. For five years he had trafficked heroin, but he stopped after taking a big loss. Before 2003, he was a respected leader of the Muslim community here in Ruili, which also attracts Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang province.

At that time, Bushi had dozens of aides and spent more than 5,000 yuan (600 U.S. dollars) per day in drug earnings. ''I understand heroin kills people,'' he says. But then he had no choice. Now he does. ''I don't want that hell.''

As China's western border with Burma is now the main transit point for heroin, several Burmese Muslim traders have taken to the trade. Many Burmese Muslims in Ruili - there are some 1,000 here in this busy border town -- are economic migrants due to political and economic discrimination by Burmese authorities.

That discrimination has roots in history, and at certain points resulted in riots between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority, instigated by military authorities. Eighty-nine percent of Burma's more than 50 million people are Buddhist, Muslims and Christians 4 percent and others make up the rest.

Majority of Muslims live in the western part of Arakan state, on the border with Bangladesh, and come under restrictions in marriage and fertility. Many feel they do not have the same opportunities as other communities.

Bushi started out in Ruili as a small jade trader, then found selling drugs a better way to get rich quick. ''I would be left behind if I rode a cart to follow cars,'' he explains. He reckons that almost half of the Burmese Muslims in China are in the business.

Trafficking in heroin and using ill-gotten money of this sort is forbidden under Islam. ''This is 'haram' (forbidden) money,'' Bushi says. ''We shouldn't (live on money from it).''

But this has not stopped many jade traders from turning to the poppy in the last decade. Heightened profits, however, bring heightened risks. ''Only a few people benefit from the drug business,'' Bushi says. ''Many are in jail.''

Bushi has never been arrested, but some of his men were jailed last year for heroin possession. The seizure made Bushi a poor man, but in general he has no problem smuggling heroin to Kunming, capital of China's south-west Yunnan province. ''I have many ways of getting (heroin) around,'' he says.

These include putting heroin inside dairy tins, human rectums, and female reproductive organs. But Bushi knew his luck would eventually run out. ''Even the big chief will get arrested someday,'' he adds.

A few traffickers can get and stay rich, but many serve long sentences in Chinese prisons or suffer the death penalty. Even so, the temptation is often irresistible. In any case, traders say, Chinese and Burmese authorities are not above taking bribes to close their eyes.

Ruili residents call heroin traffickers 'kya kya kala' - 'kya kya' is slang for heroin in Ruili, and 'kala' is a term Burmese use to refer to westerners or Indians.

Some former 'kya kya kala' or those in the heroin business collaborate with Chinese police to crack down on the trade. Kyaw Hein, a Burmese, is one. His work is to investigate the Burmese heroin mafia.

Kyaw Hein stopped trafficking after Chinese police caught his brother-in-law in possession of a large amount of heroin. But his experience as a trafficker immediately landed him a job. He continues to earn drug money, but this time in the form of payments made by his former friends to the police, who give him 20 percent of seized cash in return for his information.

Kyaw Hein gives detailed reports of trafficking activities to Chinese police, who have been trying to clamp down on a social ill that has resulted in worrisome drug use rates along the border since it opened the region up in the eighties.

On an average day, Kyaw Hein will hang around town, play cards, and chat with friends. Only a few of them know that he is an informer, but everyone who works in Ruili's heroin trade is known to him.

Although he prefers this job over trafficking because it is 'safer', he is aware of the threat from the traffickers themselves. ''I know the death knell will sound for me one day,'' he says, ''but I'm not afraid''.

Kyaw Hein's job includes monitoring transit points. He says that heroin comes from M use, a Burmese town opposite Ruili, and then goes on to Kunming, or goes from Ruili to Kunming via Dali. Further still, it can go from Panghsang, located in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army, to Kunming via Simao, also in Yunnan. But the Ruili route has lately shrunk due to a heavy crackdown by Chinese police.

Interviews here showed that even active 'kya kya kala' are stumped as to where the heroin goes from Kunming, but they believe that it enters the international market via several routes.

In April 2003, over a half metric tonne of heroin en route to Kunming was seized by Chinese authorities outside Ruili. The amount was the largest seizure of the year so far.

According to 'Jane's Intelligence Review', heroin from Burma reaches eastern China and Hong Kong, to be eventually exported to South-east Asia, Australia and North America.

Nearly 200 Burmese Muslims are in Chinese jails, both Bushi and Kyaw Hein estimated. According to Chinese law, the penalty for drug trafficking is execution. But the penalty is not imposed on Burmese nationals, who serve a maximum of 15 years. Some traffickers who can afford to bribe police can reduce their jail terms to a few months, or avoid jail altogether, according to talk that goes around here.

Kyaw Hein said a group of Burmese Muslims are moving to the area close to Panghsang for the coveted white powder. ''All 'tigers' here move there (Panghsang),'' he says.

Bushi has no interest in becoming a tiger again, preferring to live tranquilly with his family in Ruili. But he does want to spread the word about the damage heroin has done to his community and to the name of Allah. ''I dare to die for the truth,'' Bushi says. ''People may exit the trade but it will continue to affect the world.''

Naw Seng of 'Irrawaddy' magazine in Thailand wrote this under the IPS-Rockefeller Foundation media fellowship programme 'Our Mekong: A Vision amid Globalisation'.