Police bust Songkhla newspaper editor for drug crimes

Police busted a newspaper editor in Thailand’s southern Songkhla province for drug-related crimes on Friday. The editor was found to be working along with two other suspects.

A team of officers from several divisions raided the three suspect’s rooms in the town of Sadao in the Sai Buri district. One of the suspects, 35 year old Paradorn, is an editor for a local newspaper, according to Thai news outlet Naewna. Naewna did not name which newspaper Paradorn worked for.

The other two men arrested were 36 year old Koder, and 49 year old Diwantrian, a Malaysian national.

The officers found 20 meth pills, 200 grammes of heroin, drug paraphernalia, and four mobile phones in the suspects’ rooms.

The men were charged with possessing narcotics and selling methamphetamine/amphetamine.

The team of officers who arrested the suspects included Border Patrol Police, and officers from the 44th Ranger Forces Regiment and 5th Infantry Division. The director of the Office of Narcotics Control Board in Songkhla led the team.

This news comes after a major drug bust in Songkhla in November. Narcotics control police seized about 400,000 meth pills from a rented room in the Bang Klam district on November 27.

The suspect, 28 year old Athiwat, allegedly told police that he had stored 15 consignments of about 200,000 meth pills, also known as Yaba, in his room. Athiwat said he was paid 20,000 baht for looking after each shipment.

Meth continues to be the most popular, cheap, and readily available illicit narcotic in Thailand and Southeast Asia, where the synthetic drug trade is booming.

Last year alone, more than one billion meth pills were seized in the east and Southeast Asia, according to a report released by the United Nations. The UN considers it the “drug of greatest concern” in the region.

In April 2021, Thai police arrested more than 120,000 drug suspects in the past six months. They seized more than 2.4 billion baht in assets and confiscated more than 260 million pills of illegal substances, including meth.