48 ‘restaurant’ goers test positive for drugs in Northeast Thailand

48 ‘restaurant’ goers tested positive for drugs in Khon Khaen province in Thailand’s Northeast in the early hours of this morning. Police found 62 customers in the restaurant. Apart from food, they found alcoholic drinks and packets of crystal methamphetamine on the tables. Empty packets were found in trash cans.

Officers from Ban Pet police station had been tipped off that the restaurant was serving alcohol past the 9pm limit. All 62 were charged with violating measures to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. 48 of the 62 were also charged with using illicit drugs after taking urine tests. A police major general said the restaurant’s manager was charged with violating the provincial announcement on measures to control the spread of Covid. He said the owner was summoned to hear the same charge.

Another ‘restaurant’ manager was arrested last month in Pattaya for allegedly selling alcohol without a permit, opening a venue without a permit, and breaking the Chonburi Disease Control Orders. Alcohol can be served there until 11 pm at this stage. There have been plenty of other similar raids as police randomly enforce the current guidelines on opening times and the string of alcohol.

The Khon Khaen restaurant incident also follows a drug bust in Chiang Rai province last month. The Department of Special Investigations seized nearly 1.4 billion baht in assets after searching three houses in the province. The houses belonged to suspected members of a drug network. The assets included 246 bank accounts, 155 cars and motorcycles worth about 130 million baht, and land title deeds for 232 blocks of land worth about 1.3 billion baht. The DSI also found documents at the houses which showed about 1.9 billion baht in circulation.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post