BANGKOK: A large quantity of methamphetamine pills worth over 150 million baht on the street have been seized in two drug busts in which 10 suspects were caught in Prachuap Khiri Khan and Khon Kaen.
Five suspects were arrested and 96,000 methamphetamine pills seized at Pran Buri customs duty checkpoint in Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Pran Buri district on Thursday afternoon, Narcotics Suppression Bureau (NSB) commander Rewat Klinkesorn said at a press conference here the other day.
The five, two men and three women, were identified as Abdulloh Luemae, 21, Suwirat Nguan-seng, 34, Leena Luemae, 23, Jaebeedor Sama-ae, 40, and Doleeyor Jaewae.
Their arrest followed an investigation which revealed the suspects were about to deliver illicit drugs to the deep South.
In the second case, five men were apprehended and 600,000 speed pills seized from them in Khon Kaen’s Phon district.
The suspects were identified as Komol Namprachan, 33, Thongkham Promwong, 44, Natthapong Promwong, 33, Prasopchok Phochaem, 29, and an 18-year-old youth.
The suspects were heading for Bangkok when they were caught. The seized pills were smuggled from Myanmar and were destined for Malaysia, police said. The gang had used four vehicles along the smuggling route.
Police also seized another 72,730 speed pills from small drug sellers in eight other cases in Khon Kaen and Chon Buri.
Pol Lt Gen Rewat said the seized drugs came from a Wa drugs trafficking gang in Myanmar.
In Kachanaburi, a one-armed man and his wife were arrested after 19,800 speed pills were found in their possession during a police search of a passenger van on Thursday morning.
Khwanpradit Phoonploy, 37, and his wife Rattana Putpradit, 35, both from Ratchaburi, were travelling in a passenger van from Kanchanaburi to the Three Pagoda checkpoint when a team of soldiers and police stopped the van at a checkpoint in Sangkhla Buri around 6am on Thursday, Pol Maj Gen Kamolsanti Klanbut, Kanchanaburi provincial chief said on Friday.
Four packages of the drugs were found concealed down the front of the man’s pants and six other packages were found around his wife’s waist.
Pol Col Khwanchai Theerakul, chief of Sangkhla Buri police, said Mr Khwanpradit told police he had been hired for 50,000 baht to smuggle the drugs. The suspect said it was the first time he had done it, but police were not convinced.
Criminal records showed the couple had been previously involved in the drug trade.
