Nepali man caught smuggling 5.6 kilograms of hashish into Thailand

A Nepali man was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport yesterday after customs found 5.6 kilograms of hashish hidden in his luggage with an estimated value of 560,000 baht.

At 6.45pm, airport customs officials inspected a suitcase belonging to a man flying in from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

As the unnamed Nepali national passed through with nothing to declare, customs asked him to put his pull-along black suitcase through the X-ray machine.

Customs officials found an “abnormality” so they inspected the suitcase to find it had a secret compartment which they opened with a screwdriver.

Inside, customs found a 98 x 98 centimetre brown substance in block form wrapped in a plastic bag. A sample was tested and came back positive for hashish, also known as hash.

Hashish is a concentrated form of the psychoactive compound found in the cannabis plant – tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Hash is made by collecting the resin produced by the flowers of the cannabis plant and compressing it into a solid, brown block with a distinctive smell.

Despite high-THC cannabis flowers being legal in Thailand since June 9 last year, hashish is still deemed a Category 5 narcotic. Hashish is considered a cannabis “extract,” which is classified as Category 5 illicit narcotics even after the decriminalisation of the cannabis plant.

The drug smuggler was taken to Suvarnabhumi Airport Police Station and charged with, “bringing a Category 5 narcotic (hash) into the kingdom without permission and possessing a Category 5 narcotic (hash) without permission,” violating narcotics laws and the Customs Act.

Two weeks ago, a 57 year old Pakistani man was arrested at the same airport for bringing a suitcase brimming with drugs into Thailand from Karachi, Pakistan.

Police seized 79,200 pills in total including Methylphenidate Hydrochloride, Zolpidem, Alprazolam, Zolpidem Tartrate, and Diazepam.

He was arrested under suspicion of smuggling Type 2 and Type 4 psychotropic substances into the kingdom of Thailand without permission.