Phuket police nab 3,373 meth pills from 5 suspects

After two suspects were arrested in Phuket last week for having thousands of meth pills, five more meth suspects have been arrested on August 10-11. The five men were arrested in different areas of Phuket. Altogether, police ended up seizing 3,373 meth pills.

One man was arrested in the west coast town of Karon. The 31 year old man, Charin ‘Arm’ Innoom, had 1,909 meth pills. He also had two guns with two bullets. Arm is being charged with having category 1 drugs with intent to sell, as well as illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

Another man was arrested in the Wichit neighbourhood of the main city district. The man, 26 year old Niram ‘Nat’ Samoo Lanlongsa, had 15 meth pills and a gun. He is facing charges of having category 1 drugs, as well as illegal possession of a firearm.

In another neighbourhood of Phuket’s main city district, Rassada, police arrested 23 year old Jirayut ‘Benz’ Datjarit. Benz had 41 meth pills, and 0.08 grammes of crystal meth. He faces charges of having category 1 drugs with intent to sell, as well as illegally using drugs.

In the east coast town of Chalong, police arrested 30 year old Nattapong ‘Mos’ Hansantear. Mos had 800 meth pills. He faces the charge of having category 1 drugs with intent to sell.

In the Kathu district, police arrested two men. The men are 39 year old Narongchai ‘O’ Srisooksai, and 39 yera old Sommai ‘Mai’ Noppakao. The two had 608, 30 ecstasy pills, and about 2.5 grammes of crystal meth. They also had 2 guns with 85 bullets. O and Sommai face charges of illegal possession of category 1 drugs with intent to sell, as well as illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

In the two meth busts in Phuket last week, police had seized a total of 3,563 meth pills from two men.

Meth continues to be the most popular, cheap, and readily available illicit narcotic in Thailand and all of southeast Asia, where the synthetic drugs trade is booming.

Last year alone, more than one billion meth pills were seized in 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.

SOURCE: The Phuket Express