Thailand logs first meth seizure of 2023 amid surging drug trade
Thai police made their first methamphetamine seizure of 2023 on New Year’s Day after billions of meth tablets, known as yaba (crazy medicine), flooded the country in 2022.
Two men were nabbed at a checkpoint in Phitsanulok, 350 kilometres north of Bangkok, for allegedly smuggling over 700 tablets of meth in their jacket.
Phitsanulok police detained driver Suwit Khamlert, 28, and passenger Phiphat Chollanai, 28, as they drove through Ban Tha Ngam checkpoint on Phitsanulok-Uttaradit Road in Wat Bot district.
Police stopped their pick-up after spotting one of the men trying to take something from his jacket throw it out of the window. A search revealed 701 tablets of methamphetamine hidden in the jacket.
The suspects believed that police had been deployed to New Year countdowns in Wat Bot district and left the checkpoint unmanned, officers said.
Suwit admitted they were driving from Sawankhalok to Si Samrong districts in Sukhothai province, but got lost and took the Phitsanulok-Uttaradit Road by mistake before encountering the checkpoint, they added.
Urine tests on both suspects came back positive for drugs. They were taken to Wat Bot police station for questioning and to be charged.
The price of yaba plunged as low as 10 baht per pill last year after meth labs in Myanmar’s Golden Triangle area flooded the country with supplies.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that 3-6 billion tablets of methamphetamine were smuggled through Thailand in 2021.
Jeremy Douglas, UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, called the scale of methamphetamine trade “staggering” and warned it would continue to expand if the region does not address the root causes, including governance in the Golden Triangle and market demand.
“Organised crime have all the ingredients in place that they need to continue to grow the business, including territory to produce, access to chemicals, established trafficking routes and relationships to move product, and a massive population with spending power to target,” Douglas said.
