Another Major Drug Bust in Chiang Mai

14 September 2012

Police in northern Thailand have arrested four ethnic hilltribe people and seized 600,000 methamphetamine tablets with a street value of over 180 million baht (US $6 million), according to The Bangkok Post. National police chief Priewpan Damapong said at a press conference on Friday that two pick-up trucks had been stopped at a checkpoint after Chiang Mai police received a tip-off that there would be an attempt to smuggle a large amount of methamphetamine pills, known locally as ya-ba, through Chiang Mai’s Phrao district. Thai intelligence sources had indicated that a drug ring had paid the suspects 500,000 baht to smuggle the drugs over the Burmese border into Thailand. Under the plan, the drugs would have been initially stashed in Chiang Mai and later transported to clients in Bangkok and its vicinity, said police.