Police nab over 400,000 meth pills in 7 South Thailand provinces

Police nabbed over 400,000 meth pills in seven provinces in South Thailand. Some 430,029 meth pills were found in the provinces of Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Chumphon, Krabi, Phang Nga, Ranong, and Phuket.

Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn said in a press conference on Wednesday that the crackdown aimed to ensure safety in tourist provinces during Christmas and the new year holiday.

Region 8 Police searched 517 places in the seven provinces.

The officers seized 88 firearms, 1,199 bullets, 430,029 methamphetamine pills, and 305 grams of crystal methamphetamine. The firearms were mostly seized in Nakhon Si Thammarat, followed by Surat Thani and Chumphon, The Phuket Express reported.

This news comes less than two months after another major drug bust in South Thailand in November. On November 27, narcotics control police seized about 400,000 meth pills from a rented room in the Bang Klam district of Songkhla province.

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 consignment. He said that about a week ago, a man contacted him to pick up four parcels from a privately run service in the Hat Yai district. Each parcel contained about 800,000 meth pills.

Athiwat said that he and his friend picked up the four parcels, and brought them to his room. Two of the parcels were delivered to an unidentified man, he said.

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.

In 2021 alone, more than one billion meth pills were seized in 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.