Police Seize $61 Million of Methamphetamine Pills Discovered in a Trailer Truck from Chiang Rai

 

AYUTTHAYA – Thai police have seized more than 14 million methamphetamine pills worth 1.48 billion baht ($61 million) that were bound for neighboring Malaysia and beyond, authorities say, in one of its biggest ever drug busts.

Police said that the orange pills of methamphetamine, known as “yaba” or “crazy drug”, were seized in Ayutthaya province, north of Bangkok.

Three Thais were arrested in connection with the seizure, police said.

The drugs originated from Shan State in north-east Myanmar, in an area under the control of an ethnic Wa militia force, and were shipped to a warehouse in Chiang Rai, police said.

Police learned that a drug gang based in the North, and with a connection to Lao drug traffickers, had transported illicit cargoes – hidden among farm produce – in a trailer truck from Chiang Rai to a warehouse in Ayutthaya’s Bang Pa-in district. The drugs were to be later distributed to retail dealers in Bangkok and nearby provinces.

Investigators, staking out the target warehouse in Chiang Rai’s Thoeng district, spotted the trailer truck –reportedly driven by Jirawat – departing the premises on August 16 morning and dispatched teams to tail it from a distance.

When the truck reached Bang Pa-in reportedly to collect fruit-filled boxes, Pollawat and Seksit showed up to take over the truck from Jirawat and drove back to the Chiang Rai warehouse, where the fruit boxes were reportedly emptied and the fruit replaced by drugs.

The pair later drove the drug-laden container truck back to Bang Pa-in.

The Narcotics Suppression Bureau displayed the haul, neatly packed into large container bags, at their headquarters.

Bureau commander Lieutenant General Sommai Kongvisaisuk said the drugs were destined for Malaysia and then on to markets around the world.

“It gets distributed to Europe, America, Australia, Japan, Singapore and Korea and will make a lot of money,” he said.

The seizure is the latest big methamphetamine bust in the region.

Record seizures of the stimulant have recently been made in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The production and trafficking of methamphetamine in South-East Asia has reached “alarming levels”, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned in a May report.

Much of the methamphetamine produced in the region comes from lawless parts of Myanmar, in particular Shan State, which has long been known for the production of opium and its refined form heroin.

In recent years, the drug syndicates have branched out into the production of methamphetamine.