Thai police arrest drug smugglers with 1.6 million meth pills, 1 suspect still on the loose

Police arrested five drug smugglers in Thailand’s northern Kamphaeng Phet province yesterday. Officers from the Narcotics Suppression Division seized 1.6 million meth pills from the suspects.

The suspects had been driving from Chiang Rai to Bangkok to deliver the pills. The police then apprehended them at a gas station.

The pills were spread into 16 backpacks and were hidden in a pickup truck and a BMW sedan.

One suspect driving the sedan managed to escape, and police were on the hunt for him, according to Police General Chinnapat Sarasin.

The suspects are 22 year old Netiphong Saeyang, 28 year old Noppadech Saesong, 35 year old Ekapop Sae-her, and 53 year old Chakkrit Suayrak.

The first three suspects were from the Hmong hill tribe in Tak province, and the last two were Thai.

All five arrested suspects, and the fleeing suspect, were charged with illegally selling and disseminating the type 1 illicit drug to the public, The Pattaya News reported.

This news comes after another major meth bust in Thailand just last week. Narcotics Suppression police confiscated 2,200,000 meth pills, and 40,000 Erimin 5 pills in Lop Buri province. The officers arrested nine people.

There have been a few drug busts in Thailand this year involving millions of meth pills. The biggest bust happened back in January when police seized 15.2 million meth pills in the northern Chiang Rai province.

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

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

In April, 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.