THAI AUTHORITIES yesterday temporarily impounded 48 tonnes of sodium cyanide at a warehouse in Chiang Rai province, while the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) announced a separate confiscation of 9 million methamphetamine pills and 300kg of crystal meth or “ice” in Chiang Mai.
During the raid of the rented warehouse in Chiang Rai’s Chiang Saen district, caretaker Anusorn Pharino presented a document to the searching team of ONCB officers, police, navy officers and district administrators that the chemicals were stored there to be dispatched to a gold mine in Myanmar. On Monday, Provincial Police Region 5 chief Pol Lt-General Pulsap Prasertsak and his team would inspect this batch in detail, officers said. The ONCB would also check with Myanmar authorities for confirmation about import of the batch and if it were meant for use in a gold mine as claimed, officers said. A source at the ONCB claimed that although sodium cyanide can be used to extract gold, it could also be synthesised into the narcotic substrate called phenyl-2-propanone to make methamphetamine. The seized 48 tonnes of sodium cyanide could be used to produce 18 tonnes of the substrate – enough to make 1 billion methamphetamine pills, the source said.
Monitoring of sodium cyanide was made more stringent after some Burmese factories legally ordered sodium cyanide from a third country but the products were suspiciously transported via Thailand [even though it is a farther entry point], said ONCB secretary-general Sirinya Sidthichai. Some 15 tonnes of sodium cyanide were seized in the Myanmar border town of Tachileik early this month and the Thai truck driver claimed he was hired to transport the batch – originally ordered from China – to a gold mine in Yangon.
Sirinya made his comments while he was in Bangkok to announce a separate major drug bust. Sirinya told the press that 9 million methamphetamine pills and 300kg of “ice” had been confiscated in Chiang Mai’s Chiang Dao district. NP – EP
Sodium cyanide stocks impounded
