Police find meth pills, gun, bullets, knife, and axe in man’s car in Patong

Police yesterday found nine meth pills, a gun, 10 bullets, a knife, and an axe in a man’s car in Patong.

Patong Police had been alerted by residents that there was a minivan parked in front of a hotel for a long time and that the driver looked suspicious.

The police then searched the minivan and found the items. They arrested the driver, 38 year old Chalor Ongnuan, on Phra Baramee Road.

The police brought Chalor to Patong Police Station to face charges of illegal possession of Category 1 Drugs, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition and carrying a gun and knife in public without permission.

Chalor has declined to release a statement immediately to the press or police, The Phuket Express reported.

There have been a few meth busts in Phuket this year. In August, police seized 2,770 meth pills, along with roughly 1,293 grammes of crystal meth, from a man in the main city district. He was allegedly part of a larger drug network, which included dealers in other provinces. He admitted to police that he was paid 20,000 baht every time he transported drugs and that he had done so three times. This was on top of a few other meth busts in the same month.

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 the 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 had seized more than 2.4 billion baht in assets and confiscated more than 260 million pills of illegal substances, including meth.