Huge 1 Billion Baht drugs bust in Nakhon Ratchasima
Police were celebrating on Monday after successfully completing a major drugs bust in Korat said to be worth over 1 Billion Baht.
Police on Monday (Oct 16) seized 508 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine or “ice”, with a street value of over 1 billion baht, and arrested one of the two suspected couriers in Bua Yai district of Nakhon Ratchasima province.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday morning (Oct 17), Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, the national police chief, said the seizure of the drugs followed coordinated intelligence work of concerned agencies.
On Oct 15, a checkpoint was set up to intercept a suspected vehicle with the drugs in Sida district.
On the night of Oct 15, a Toyota pick-up truck which was approaching the checkpoint made a U-turn and fled. The police contacted nearby police stations to intercept the vehicle and asked the people to notify the police on seeing it.
Later at about 12.50pm on Oct 16, Police in Bua Yai district was reported by villagers that they found a pick-up truck, which matched the description given by the police, abandoned near Wat Nong Siang Kho in Tambon Kut Chok. They also saw two men walk away from the vehicle.
The police and a number of soldiers from the Bua Yai-based peace-keeping force went to the scene and searched the vehicle.
They found inside the pick-up 508 bars of crystal methamphetamine, each weighing 1kg, stuffed in 11 fertiliser sacks. The authorities collected the fingerprints and other samples for DNA tests.
A suspicious-looking man, who was later identified as Tinnakorn Khomsing, 30, a native of Nakhon Phanom, was later found near the Bua Yai railway station and taken for interrogation.
The man confessed that he and a friend called Bee were hired for 20,000 baht by a drug trader to drive the pick-up truck with the crystal methamphetamine inside from Nakhon Phanom to an unidentified destination. They only followed the trader’s instruction by driving along the Nakhon Phanom-Sakon Nakhon-Kalasin-Maha Sarakham-Ban Phai-Muang Phon-Sida route.
The police were looking for the other suspect.
Source: PBS
