China, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand will soon come together to boost measures against drug trafficking, following the worsening situation in northern Thailand with police intercepting 141 million meth pills in the past three months.
The drug haul is far higher than the 139 million pills seized throughout last year while China’s Yunnan police had a month ago said they had seized a total of 269 million meth pills recently.
As drugs from both sides carried the same characteristics – pills imprinted with a symbol “Y1” or “999” – suggesting they came from the same source, the four nations’ authorities will jointly increase prevention and suppression measures, Provincial Police Region 5 chief Pol Maj-General Montri Sambunyanont said on Sunday.
Montri’s comment was made at a press conference in Chiang Rai province about police’s drug sweep during the New Year holidays. National Police deputy commissioner Pol General Chalermkiat Srivorakan presided over the conference.
Chalermkiat highlighted a case in which a batch of more than 2 million methamphetamine pills were confiscated in Chiang Rai’s Mae Chan district on the night of January 3 from a white Isuzu pickup truck carrying fruit crates that were spotted as suspicious in tambon Sri Kham. The truck driver, later identified as Wiroj Nongluck, 46 from Sukhothai’s Sri Satchanalai district, crashed the truck in tambon Chan Chwa Tai and escaped.
Police found 2,080,000 meth pills, most of them carrying the “999” logo while some pills carried a logo showing a red horse, in sacks hidden under the crates.
Police have secured an arrest warrant for Wiroj and frozen his assets worth Bt12 million, Chalermkiat said.
