Chiang Rai News
Police Discover Thirteen Million Methamphetamine Pills Hidden Inside Furniture Truck from Chiang Rai
LAMPANG – Narcotics suppression police and local officers have seized thirteen million methamphetamine pills, found hidden in a 12-wheel truck at a checkpoint in northern Thailand on Tuesday, police said on Wednesday.
Police stopped a truck carrying sofas and office furniture for further examination in a check point in Lampang province in the north on Tuesday night.
An X-ray revealed there were four sacks of illicit drugs hidden in more than 30 cargo inside the vehicle with a Chiang Rai license plate.
Packages of methamphetamine pills found inside office furniture on the back of the truck.
They found more than 13 million speed pills worth 2.6 billion baht (about 81.2 million U.S. dollars).
The driver of the truck, Mr. Surasak Panthupan, 47, has been held in police custody. He said he was just hired to transport the cargo from the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai to the central province of Ayutthaya.
He is being held in police custody at Mae Phrik police station for further interrogation.
Chiang Rai is a mountainous region bordering Laos and Myanmar, which makes up the Golden Triangle that once provided at least half of the world’s opium supply.
Now Methamphetamine is the number one drug smuggled into Thailand through Chiang Rai Province on it’s way south to Central Thailand, then Malaysia, where it’s shipped worldwide.
