CHIANG RAI – Police and soldiers intercepted a large drug shipment after a pickup truck broke through a checkpoint in Mae Fah Luang district and sped down the mountain late at night. After a tense chase, the driver abandoned the vehicle and ran into the forest. Officers later found about 5 million methamphetamine pills inside the truck.
The operation involved a special administrative team from Mae Fah Luang district, working with soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Company under the Chao Tak Task Force, Pha Muang Task Force, and Border Patrol Police Company 327.
The joint team set up a checkpoint on a road near Ban Pha Bue, Village 9, in Mae Fah Luang subdistrict, on the night of March 24, starting around 9:30 p.m.
Officials had received intelligence that a drug network planned to move meth pills from the Thai-Myanmar border in Mae Fah Luang into inner parts of the country. Because of that tip, they increased checks in the area and waited for suspicious vehicles.
Around 10:30 p.m., officers spotted a gray bronze Toyota Vigo Champ pickup with a steel cage mounted on the truck bed. The vehicle, registered in Chiang Rai, was driving down from the mountain and appeared suspicious. Officers signaled the driver to pull over for inspection.
Instead of stopping, the driver accelerated and forced his way past the checkpoint. As a result, officers immediately gave chase. A short time later, they found the pickup had veered off into roadside forest and could go no farther. The driver then got out and escaped into the darkness.
When officers searched the truck, they found 25 rainbow-colored sacks wrapped in black plastic and modified to look like backpack-style bags. Inside each sack were roughly 200,000 meth pills. In total, the seizure came to about 5,000,000 pills.
On March 25, authorities formally confiscated the drugs, carried out a detailed count, and handed the case to Mae Fah Luang Police Station for further legal action and an expanded investigation into the trafficking network.
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