Two women, 2.5m meth pills, seized near border after ranger chase
Rangers from the Pha Muang Task Force intercepted 2.5 million methamphetamine pills and arrested two female suspects in a pick-up truck that broke away from a checkpoint in Chiang Mai’s Mae Ai district early Tuesday morning.
The arrest followed a tip-off that a drug trafficking gang would smuggle a large batch of narcotics from a neighbouring country to store at Ban Doi Laem (Moo 13) in Tambon Mae Ai before it was delivered to an investor in Fang district
The team, led by Colonel Ekkawuth Sukros, staked out the area for seven days and nights until offers at a checkpoint near Rajaprajanukhro 30 School spotted a suspicious pick-up truck that fitted the given description at around half past midnight.
As officers presented themselves to request a vehicle search, the sack-loaded truck sped away, with rangers pursuing until they caught up to it near Pa Bong Market in Fang district.
Officers found 2.5 million meth pills in 25 sacks on the truck and arrested the two women – Nati Jatae, 40, and Marisa Nepi, 33 – who were in the truck. Both women reportedly confessed to having been hired by an unnamed person via phone instructions to deliver the narcotics.
For this trip, they were told to transport meth pills to Chai Prakan district in exchange for Bt900,000 and had already destroyed their cell phones so that police could not reach the person who hired them, officers said.