Soldiers seize Bt600m drugs cache in Chiang Rai

 The drugs were discovered when a group of seven men crossing the Sai River from Myanmar to Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district dropped their loads and fled after being challenged by soldiers. The sacks they dropped were found to contain a total of 1.66 million yaba tablets and 43 kilograms of “ice”, narcotics with an estimated street value of more than Bt600 million. 

In related news, a team of narcotics officials in Nakhon Si Thammarat arrested a network of nine suspected drug dealers in six different locations yesterday and seized 4,300 yaba pills and 14 grams of “ice”. 

Officials said one of the suspects, Kosol Ardkay, admitted it was the fourth time he had been arrested, and had confessed to ordering the drugs from a male prison inmate he knew only as “O”. Kosol said he did not know at which prison “O” was being detained, but said his gang had threatened to kill him if he did not pass on the money from his drug dealing to them.

Elsewhere, in Udon Thani a 14-year-old boy was arrested for dealing drugs after police found he was carrying 90 yaba pills.

The boy claimed the pills were given to him by his father, said police, who added that they had arrested the father last week on suspicion of transporting 20,000 yaba tablets, while the boy’s 19-year-old sister had at the same time been charged with selling 600 yaba tablets. Both are being held in Udon Thani’s central prison, and police said they would also issue an arrest warrant for the mother. The boy reportedly confessed to having become addicted to yaba early this year after witnessing his parents take the drug since he was 12 years old.