Millions of baht worth of cigarettes seized after smuggled over Burmese border

Caitlin AshworthPublished: 09:40, 26 May 2020| Updated: 17:45, 22 December 2023

239 1 minute read

Millions of baht worth of cigarettes seized after smuggled over Burmese border

PHOTO: Thai Residents

Illegal cigarettes, valued around 2.6 million baht, have been confiscated by police after they were smuggled in over the Burmese border and into the province of Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thai media reports. Three men were caught by police shortly after they crossed the border, but one was able to run back into Myanmar.

Although it was just cigarettes, smuggling of illegal substances has become a leading concern for Justice Minister Somsak Thepsutin. In the course of 6 months, thousands of people in northeast Thailand were arrested in drug cases, mostly smuggling marijuana across the Mekong and larger and more lucrative shipments of methamphetamine out of the Golden Triangle area.

Caitlin Ashworth

Caitlin Ashworth is a writer from the United States who has lived in Thailand since 2018. She graduated from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies in 2016. She was a reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette In Massachusetts. She also interned at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia and Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida.