Four women have been arrested and 200 kilogrammes of compressed marijuana seized from one of their two vehicles in Hat Yai district.
Border patrol police and narcotics suppression officers arrested the four women travelling on a pickup truck and a car, which were stopped for a search on Soi Bunnakan in tambon Kho Hong on Wednesday.
The officials found 200 kilogrammes of compressed marijuana worth around 10 million baht hidden in the pickup truck, said Pol Maj Gen Atthawut Onsap, commander of the Border Patrol Police Region 4, during a media briefing on Thursday.
The four suspects were Sawittri Sirisatipanya, 30, Wiphawan Phanlert, 33; Nuan-anong Thanpirom, 37, and Nittaya Suksa-ngiam, 37, all from Ratchaburi. Four mobile phones were seized from them.
During questioning, the suspects confessed to having been hired by a foreign broker for 160,000 baht to smuggle the drugs from Saraburi province to Hat Yai district.
They had picked up the drugs in Saraburi at around 3am on Wednesday and arrived in Hat Yai around 3pm on the same day.
They then drove to a shopping mall in this southern border district and waited there until 7pm.
The suspects said they were asked to deliver the drugs in tambon Kho Hong as someone would come to pick up the drugs, which would then be transported to the deep South and then to a neighboring country
The arresting police said the drugs had been smuggled from Laos. The four women claimed they had smuggled the drugs for the first time. They have been charged with having illicit drugs in Category 5 in their possession with intent to sell.
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Packs of compressed marijuana, weighing 200kg, are displayed during a media briefing in Hat Yai, Songkhla, on Thursday. (Photo: Assawin Pakkawan)
