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Billion baht drug haul seized from convoy in Bangkok

Billion baht drug haul seized from convoy in Bangkok

BANGKOK: Ten million made-in-Myanmar methamphetamine (ya bah) pills and nearly half a tonne of crystal methamphetamine (ya ice) hidden in tea packages have been seized from a convoy of cars in Bangkok, police announced today (May 11).

drugscrimepoliceMyanmar
By Bangkok Post

Friday 11 May 2018 05:40 PM


Police chief Chakthip Chaijinda (2nd from left) inspects packages containing 10 million methamphetamine pills and nearly half a tonne of crystal meth branded as Chinese tea seized from a convoy of four vehicles in Bangkok on Thursday night, at a media briefing today (May 11). Photo AFP

Police chief Chakthip Chaijinda (2nd from left) inspects packages containing 10 million methamphetamine pills and nearly half a tonne of crystal meth branded as Chinese tea seized from a convoy of four vehicles in Bangkok on Thursday night, at a media briefing today (May 11). Photo AFP

The drugs – worth around B1 billion on the local market – were being ferried along the “narcotics corridor”, which cuts through the central province of Ayutthaya to Bangkok and then south to Malaysia.

Police followed the four cars from Ayutthaya, which is a key warehousing site for the drugs which pour from Myanmar’s meth labs.

“Six suspects who were paid to transport drugs were arrested,” national police chief Gen Chakthip Chaijinda told a new conference today. Some of the drugs were “destined for foreign countries”.

“They belong to the northern Wa group,” he said.

The ethnic group is based in Myanmar’s Shan State which jointly oversees the world’s second-largest drug producing region, the notorious “Golden Triangle” border zone that encompasses parts of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and China.