Police chief calls for more action against drugs
National police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda has told regional police bosses to adjust operations and crack down on drug trafficking as he found the operations’ outcome in the past years was still less than satisfactory.
He urged police to study suspects’ escape routes.
Chakthip on Thursday presided over a two-hour meeting at the Narcotics Suppression Bureau in Bangkok to give policy on anti-drug trafficking to senior police officers from various police units including Provincial Police Region 1-9, Border Patrol Police Command, Immigration Police Bureau, Central Investigation Bureau.
Chakthip told the Provincial Police Region 1-9 chiefs to adjust operation plans, as the drug trafficking had spread all over the country. He also urged police in the North and Northeast, where drugs were smuggled in transit before heading to the Central and Southern regions to try to intercept the drugs and arrest suspects.
Pol Lt-General Sommai Kongwisaisuk, the NSB commissioner, is coordinating with neighbouring countries in the crackdown.
Chakthip said he was not satisfied with the previous years’ statistics on drug busts although a large amount of drugs and guns had been seized and many suspects arrested. He said police should focus on acting against major drug dealers, whom many of the police drug busts still couldn’t reach because the suspects had well-planned escape routes to evade arrests. “We must study the drug traffickers’ routes and adjust accordingly,” he urged.
In the fiscal year 2017, a total of 294,482 suspects were arrested in 275,633 drug cases – which is a 23-per-cent increase from the previous fiscal year’s 241,866 suspects in 224,075 drug cases. The haul seized in fiscal year 2017 was 215,589,578 yaba pills, 5,204.75 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, or “ice”, 411.25 kilograms of heroin, 14,729.98 kilograms of dry marijuana, 45.45 kilograms of cocaine and 129,718.29 kilograms of Kratom leaves.