76kg heroin seized in Nong Khai after shootout
Police seized 76 kilograms of heroin while they were being smuggled across the Mekong River from Laos following a shootout with a group of foreign traffickers early yesterday.
Pol Maj-General Chalong Pakpinyo, deputy commissioner of the Provincial Police Bureau 4, said the gunfire between police and drug traffickers happened at 3am at about 200 metres from the riverside in Tambon Ban Muang in Samngkhom district.
Chalong said police received a tip-off that a drug gang would smuggle the drug across the river into Thailand at the spot hence police were deployed.
Chalong said at 3am about 10 men came up from the river carrying bags to Huay Hol Suangson Bridge. When police advanced towards them, the men allegedly opened fire.
Following the gunfight, the men retreated to the river.
Police found 200 heroin bars in three bags weighing 76kg.
Chalong said police had learned that the drug was supposed to be transported to Songkhla province to be smuggled into Malaysia.
He said police had learned that the drug was smuggled from the Golden Triangle into Laos and then into Thailand because of tight screening by Thai authorities in the North, which prevented smuggling across the northern borderline.
