Ya Bah dealer arrested near Sarasin Bridge

TA CHAT CHAI: A street food vendor was arrested yesterday morning for selling ya bah right under the noses of officers at Ta Chat Chai Police Station, just south of the Sarasin Bridge. According to Pol Lt Col Sakchai Limsawas of the police station, officers first received information that people living in the house at 1/2 Thepkasattri Rd – only about 100 meters from the Sarasin Bridge police checkpoint – had been selling ya bah to truck drivers. The police, armed with a search warrant, went to the house at 10 am yesterday. There, they found Lamiat Udompol, 43, owner of the house, 30 tablets of ya bah, and 4,000 baht in cash hidden in Lamiat’s brassiere. Pol Lt Col Sakchai said that this answered the police station’s question as to why there had been so many trucks stopping at the house everyday. “She was really brave to sell it this close to us,” he observed. Lamiat later confessed that her husband was a truck driver; that he bought ya bah from another truck driver for 50 baht per tablet; and that she then sold it at 100-200 baht apiece. Lamiat, who claimed that she had been selling ya bah for only 10 days prior to the arrest, was charged with possession and trafficking in the illicit drug. The minimum penalty for drug trafficking in Thailand is 15 years in jail or a fine of up to 50,000 baht, or both. The maximum penalty is execution. The sentence depends upon the amount of drugs involved.