Golden Triangle
- Guides
Motorbike routes in Thailand: Adventures await for enthusiasts
Thailand has an abundance of thrilling motorbike tours through its varied landscapes and captivating locations for thrill-seekers and adventure seekers. In addition to showcasing the nation’s natural beauties, these incredible motorbike routes offer a unique glimpse into Thailand’s rich cultural legacy and rocky mountain passes. This article reveals some of Thailand’s stunning motorbike routes, which are a must for any…
- Guides
A journey into the heart of the golden triangle
Nestled in the embrace of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, the Golden Triangle is an enchanting destination that beckons travellers with its rich tapestry of culture, history, and breathtaking landscapes. This fabled locale, once synonymous with the opium trade, has transformed into a hub of tourism and cultural exchange. Here’s a guide to the must-visit attractions and activities in the Golden…
- World News
Myanmar’s junta growing more opium than ever
Myanmar has been growing more opium since the 2021 coup, reversing a six-year decline between 2014 and 2020, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said. During the first full opium growing season since the military took power in February 2021, Myanmar saw a 33% increase in poppy cultivation and an 88% increase in potential opium yield…
- Thailand News
3 Pakistani men arrested in Chiang Rai for illegal immigration
Three Pakistani men were arrested and then charged on Saturday in Chiang Rai for illegal immigration and overstaying. The three admitted that they travelled in and out of Thailand via the border at the Golden Triangle. Officers from Chiang Saen Immigration Bureau reported that they spotted three suspicious foreign men in a public park in the Chiang Saen district of…
- Thailand News
Chiang Rai opens skywalk with panoramic views of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos
A new skywalk has opened in the northern province of Chiang Rai at the meeting point between Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar – also known as the ‘Golden Triangle.’ The “Three Lands Skywalk” stands about 486 feet above sea level and offers panoramic views of mountains, forests, and the Mekong River. The new attraction is located about 400 metres away from…
- World News
Record breaking amount of methamphetamine pills seized in Asia
More than one billion methamphetamine pills were seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, according to a report released by the United Nations. The illicit synthetic drug market is constantly evolving in East and southeast Asia, with every country in the region reporting methamphetamine as their drug of greatest concern, according to the UN. The UN’s report says most…
- Things To Do
Top 5 hotels you should stay in Chiang Rai 2022
While many of us who love Thailand have heard of Chiang Mai, we often overlook the yet another beautiful province of Chiang Rai. Thailand’s hidden gem is located just 3 hour drive away from Chiang Mai and a few miles south of the Golden Triangle (Thailand, Laos and Myanmar border). Relatively isolated from other populated attractions, Chiang Rai is a…
- World News
Asia’s second largest drug bust: 36 million meth pills in Laos
After a record-breaking bust in October, police in Laos have just captured 36 million meth pills, the second-largest Asian drug bust on record. A United Nations official confirmed the bust earlier today and say it points to changes in the patterns of drug smuggling in Southeast Asia. In the bust earlier this week, 36 million meth pills were found along…
- World News
“Chat girls” in Laos forced into prostitution at a Golden Triangle casino
Inside China-run Golden Triangle Economic Zone next to the Mekong River in far northern Laos, many young women from neighbouring countries come to look for jobs to make a decent income to support their families back home. Many of the vacancies would advertise as “chat girls” to sell shares in the new company to casino patrons, but many struggled to…
- Crime News
Chiang Rai police seize 1 million methamphetamine pills
Police in Chiang Rai have arrested 2 men and seized 1 million methamphetamine pills after a car pursuit in the province’s Muang district last night. As reported by the Bangkok Post, narcotics suppression police and soldiers at first attempted to flag down the men’s vehicle, with police then giving chase after the driver accelerated away. A subsequent search of the…
- World News
Record drug bust in Laos follows pandemic’s methamphetamine boom
The large haul of methamphetamine was seized by Laos police in what the United Nations considers Asia’s largest single drug bust on record follows the methamphetamine boom in Southeast Asia – particularly in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. Despite border closures and other restrictions during the pandemic, those in the illicit methamphetamine trade have not only survived, but have managed…
- World News
55 million meth pills seized in Laos in biggest SE Asian bust ever
One for the record books – police in Laos have made the largest drug bust in East and Southeast Asia’s history, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Police in Laos stopped a shipment and seized over 55 million meth pills and more than 1.5 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine yesterday. The bust was confirmed by 2 security…
- Crime News
500 kilograms of marijuana discovered on Mekong riverbank in Nakhon Phanom
500 kilograms of dried and compressed marijuana were found along the Mekong River in the Isaan province Nakhon Phanom. A drug suppression team from the Mekong Riverine Unit seized 10 sacks containing 1-kilogram packages of compressed marijuana. Altogether, there were 500 slabs weighing a total of 500 kilograms, according to commander of the unit, Jaraskiat Chaiyaphan. Police believe the slabs of…
- Crime News
Thailand’s big, bad meth boom, in the middle of a pandemic | VIDEO
Caitlin Ashworth reports on Thailand’s burgeoning drug trade and the futile attempts to try and control it. 72 tonnes of a chemical called propionyl chloride arrives in a remote region of Laos. All professionally packaged and loaded ready for shipping. The containers full of the obscure chemical had made their way from Jiangsu, a coastal Chinese province north of…
- Crime News
Police nab 600kg heroin drug bust, year’s biggest in Northeast
The largest haul of heroin in Thailand’s Northeast region this year was intercepted today when authorities impounded 600 kilogrammes of compressed heroin in Nakhon Phanom. The chief of Provincial Police Region 4 confirmed that the stash with a street value of at least 2 billion baht was seized late last night by local police in possession of a suspected drug…
- Crime News
4 million methamphetamine pills abandoned after smugglers confronted by Chiang Mai patrol
Yesterday, drug smugglers transporting their wares near the Myanmar border in Chiang Mai left 4 million methamphetamine pills behind after an army patrol attempted to stop them. The accidental drug-drop-off happened in the Fang district in northern Thailand. The patrol caught sight of 2 men carrying olive green backpacks walking alongside a natural border yesterday. The soldiers requested the 2…
- Thailand video news
Thailand News Today | Bangkok curfew, dark red zone restrictions, golden triangle boom | July 9
The CCSA is imposing further Covid-19 restrictions, including a night-time curfew, travel restrictions in Bangkok and other Dark Red Zones, for 14 days, expected to take effect as soon as tomorrow. In related news, 9,276 new Covid-19 community infections and 72 coronavirus-related deaths were reported today by the CCSA. Following this week’s explosion and subsequent fire in central Samut Prakan…
- World News
Northern Thai police seize assets, drugs valued at over 900 million baht
Northern Thai police have seized assets/drugs valued at $31.127 million US dollars (over 900 million baht) from a drug cartel that has been based out of the Golden Triangle. Secretary General of the Office of the Narcotics Board Wichai Chaimongkol, said yesterday that the cartel moved heroin from Northern Thailand into Malaysia by way of a production centre somewhere in…
- World News
What’s that wind smell like to you? Myanmar authorities blaze drugs valued at $670 mil US dollars
Yesterday, Myanmar authorities set an assortment of drugs on fire throughout the country. The drugs were valued, collectively, at $670 million US dollars, or about 20,100,000,000 baht. The Myanmar authorities blazed opium, heroin, and methamphetamine. Their narcotics suppression experts say drug syndicates have used ingenuity to get around Covid-19 travel restrictions and are still very much open for business. There…
- Crime News
1.2 tonnes of methamphetamine and heroin seized near Malaysian border
Police in the southern province Satun seized 1.2 tonnes of heroin and methamphetamine valued at around 1 billion baht that had been left in a canal near the Malaysian border. Thai maritime authorities and Satun marine police were surveying a mangrove forest at the Tam Malang Canal when they found 39 large plastic bins in the wetland. Large quantities of…
- World News
UN report: Changes in Southeast Asia drug trafficking during the pandemic
While the notorious Golden Triangle remains a major production base for methamphetamine, drug syndicates in Southeast Asia have changed up trafficking routes and added production bases to not only survive but capitalise during the pandemic. Large-scale methamphetamine production has emerged in Cambodia during the pandemic, according to the annual UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on synthetic drugs in…
- World News
Large-scale methamphetamine production emerges in Cambodia during pandemic
During the pandemic, Cambodia has become a major base for the large-scale production of methamphetamine as drug traffickers workaround Covid-19 restrictions, according to the United Nations. Last year, during the pandemic, 170 tonnes of methamphetamine were seized by authorities in Asia, a 19% increase from the year prior, according to a report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime.…
- Crime News
New illicit drug cocktail on Bangkok’s streets | VIDEO
Watch the video here… WARNING: This article contains content related to drugs and drug use. A cocktail of narcotics known to police as “K powdered milk” or “K Nompong’ in Thai, is suspected to be linked to a number of deaths among young Thais in Bangkok. The “K powdered milk” is a mixture of ketamine, heroin, methamphetamine and a sleeping…
- Thailand News
Thailand News Today | Bangkok air pollution, 28 Covid cases, Lao dam protest | December 14
Bangkok starts the new week with ‘unhealthy’ air quality Waking up in Bangkok today you would have been surprised that the sun had disappeared to be replaced by a grey sky and views across the city limited to less than a kilometre. Across the city the air quality readings for most of the day have been aver the 150 mark…
- World News
Malaysia coast guard busts record methamphetamine shipment, possibly smuggled from Golden Triangle
Malaysia’s coast guard made its largest bust, seizing more than 2 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine that was hidden in packets of Chinese tea. The shipment of illegal drugs, worth 105.9 million ringgit, or 789 million baht, is part of a large-scale drug trade across Southeast Asia, China and Australia. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency director general, Mohamad Zubil Mat Som,…
- World News
Billions in illicit drugs burned in Thailand and Myanmar
In a joint operation, authorities in Thailand and Myanmar destroyed 25 tonnes of illicit drugs valued at more than 62 billion baht (US$2 billion) in Ayutthaya and Yangon. The move comes as drug cartels in the Golden Triangle boost supplies and seek new channels of distribution. The Golden Triangle, where Laos, northern Myanmar and Thailand meet, has been a hub…
- World News
Justice minister targets drug money laundering
With the government struggling to find revenue streams for its economic stimulus plans to rebuild an economy battered by Covid-19, Thailand’s justice minister thinks he has an idea to help. He wants authorities to target businesses that launder drug money from the Golden Triangle and has set a target of 1.5 billion baht by August. The minister says anti-drug forces,…
- World News
“Off the charts” – biggest drug seizure in decades
“Truly off-the-charts.” That was the assessment of Jeremy Douglas from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime talking about a major drug seizure in Myanmar’s northern Shan state. How off the charts? Authorities seized 200 million methamphetamine tablets (yaba), more than 500 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine (ice), and 35.5 tonnes and 163,000 thousand litres of precursor chemicals used to manufacture…
- Covid-19 News
Golden Triangle drug trade thrives during pandemic
The Golden Triangle is notorious for one thing. Drugs. And while the coronavirus pandemic is crippling businesses across Thailand, the drug industry around the Myanmar-Laos-Thailand border seems to be flourishing. Actually, really well. Production of synthetic drugs coming in from the Golden Triangle is hitting record highs, the Chiang Rai Times reports. Opium and heroin production in the Golden Triangle has…
- Northern Thailand News
Two drug smugglers killed by soldiers in Chiang Rai, drugs seized
Two drug runners have been shot and killed by soldiers in the Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai. They were shipping 600 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine (ice) which was seized in the operation. The men were killed during a gunfight between a group of drug runners and border police after the Pha The Muang military task force detected 15-20 men…
- Northern Thailand News
Narcotics Control Board say they’ve prevented 300 million meth pills coming into Thailand
PHOTO: Niyom Termsrisuk, ONCB secretary-general – The Nation “During the period, the ONCB led officials to search 84,000 villages and arrested 90,000 suspects in some 80,000 cases.” The Office of Narcotics Control Board says that it’s managed to prevent 300 million methamphetamine pills from flowing into the country in Q4, 2018. The ONCB secretary-general Niyom Termsrisuk says the agency also…
- Northern Thailand News
Alleged drug mule shot dead in clash with troops in Chiang Rai
PHOTO: Chiang Rai and Myanmar border at Mae Sai A drug mule has been shot dead on the border between Chiang Rai and Myanmar, and 350,000 methamphetamine pills were seized following a clash between an Army task force and a group of drug smugglers. The commander of the Pha Muang Taskforce says the incident happened at 12.30am along the Myanmar…
- World News
The ‘war on drugs’ is a complete failure
Authorities are losing the war against methamphetamines – pills and crystal meth. The demand for both crystal meth and ‘yaba’ is escalating as is the production to meet the increasing demand. The much-publicised ‘Wars on Drugs’ being waged from time to time in south east asian countries are doing little dent the rising popularity and production of the drugs, whilst…
