CHIANG MAI – Police have arrested a 19-year-old man after he was stopped and his pickup searched at the Pha Hong checkpoint in Chai Prakan district in Chiang Mai Province. Inside, they found 15 black plastic bags containing meth pills.
Shortly after midnight Thursday, soldiers from the Pha Muang Task Force, together with officers from Chai Prakan Police Station, inspected vehicles passing Pha Hong checkpoint in Si Dong Yen subdistrict, in Chai Prakan, Chiang Mai.
Officers noticed a dark grey Toyota pickup truck with a Nakhon Pathom licence plate and a locked container on the back. The vehicle was travelling from the border area towards Chiang Mai. They ordered the driver to stop for a vehicle inspection. He was later identified as Mr Thanathat, 19 years old, who said he worked as a delivery driver.
When officers opened the sealed container, they discovered four large plastic containers. Inside the boxes were 15 black plastic bags. Each bag held about 10,000 meth pills, a total of around 150,000 meth pills. Officers detained Mr Thanathat for questioning and will continue the investigation to track down the drug network behind the shipment.
Meth Pills Found in Pomelo Orchard
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, officers from the Narcotics Suppression Police received a tip-off from a local source that four suspicious black plastic bags were found piled up in a pomelo orchard behind Kaeng Phan Tao village in Chiang Dao district, Chiang Mai province.
The team then coordinated with Joint Operations Unit (SPS.3), Taskforce Phamuang, and Chiang Dao Police Station to inspect the area.
At the scene, officers found four black plastic bags under a pomelo tree in the orchard. A search of the area turned up no owner and no one claiming the bags. When they opened them, they found type 1 narcotics (methamphetamine).
Each bag contained around 200,000 meth pills, a total of about 800,000 methamphetamine pills. Officers seized the drugs as evidence and are now investigating to identify everyone involved.
From initial questioning and intelligence, officers believe that a cross-border drug trafficking group had brought the narcotics in from a neighbouring country and hidden them in the orchard.
The gang was likely waiting for a safe moment to move the drugs back across the border. Kaeng Phan Tao checkpoint on the Fang-Chiang Mai road is in the same general area, which may have forced the traffickers to leave the bags hidden for longer than planned.
According to the Narcotics Suppression Police, in the last few months, officers have stopped several drug smuggling attempts along the northern border. Many of these cases took place in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, and Phayao provinces and resulted in major seizures.
From 1 October 2015 until the present, Taskforce Pha Muang has intercepted drug trafficking operations in 102 cases, arrested 107 suspects, and seized 47,547,114 methamphetamine pills, 1.2 kilograms of heroin, 845 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, and 1.54 kilograms of opium. There were 14 armed clashes with hostile groups, leading to 8 deaths.
If all the seized drugs had reached Bangkok, the economic damage from their street value would have been as high as 7,978,374,625 baht.
