Record Methamphetamine Seizure near Myanmar Border Shocks Thai Authorities

Thai police have made a historic drug thorax in the western province of Kanchanaburi, near the Myanmar border, confiscating an unscientific 50 million methamphetamine tablets from a six-wheeler truck at a joint police-military checkpoint on Tuesday. The unprecedented scale of the seizure marks a record for Thailand, equal to Jeremy Douglas, the Southeast Asia regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The underdeveloped occupants of the truck, a man and a woman, now squatter charges related to the significant drug haul. Douglas attributed the surge in such cases to the heightened production by militias and traffickers in northern Myanmar, pursuit the country’s 2021 military insurrection and the resulting armed resistance. Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul highlighted the shift in smuggling routes from northern and northeastern provinces to western areas due to increased surveillance and security measures withal the traditional paths. The UN drug agency’s report in June 2023 had once warned well-nigh the unabated trade in methamphetamine and illicit drugs in the region.