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BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) – A record one billion methamphetamine pills were seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, the UN said Monday, as crime gangs exploited the Covid-19 pandemic and instability in coup-hit Myanmar to boost their activities. Southeast Asia’s so-called Golden Triangle has long been an infamous hotspot for drug trafficking, with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand’s porous borders and lax local policing allowing illegal substances to slip across. The UN Office on […]
by Lisa MARTIN Agence France Presse NONG KAI, Thailand (AFP) — A village watchman trains his binoculars on a suspicious fishing boat — the first line of defence as Thailand braces for a fresh methamphetamine influx after a coup in neighbouring Myanmar. The kingdom’s narcotics bureau has already seized more than 80 million “yaba” pills just in the past six months, a record haul partly blamed on a supply glut caused by the coronavirus […]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysia’s coastguard has made its largest ever seizure of methamphetamine, a top official said on Sunday, seizing 2.12 tonnes of the drug disguised as tea in a shipment believed to have come from Myanmar. Coastguard chief Zubil Mat Som said the drugs found on a boat in northern Penang state were worth around 105.9 ringgit ($26.2 million). A local suspected trafficker was arrested. “It is the coastguard’s record-breaking seizure […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Police in central Vietnam have seized more than half a ton of methamphetamine in one of the largest drug busts in recent years in the communist country where synthetic drug use is on the rise. Four people were arrested after police stormed a house in central Nghe An province where they found 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) of meth, some of it stuffed in speaker boxes. The meth shipment was “about to […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — A flood of precursor chemicals into Myanmar is fuelling record meth production, officials said Wednesday, as the country’s multi-billion-dollar drug trade spills out across Asia-Pacific. The “Golden Triangle” — a lawless wedge of land intersecting China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos — has for generations served as a base for opium and heroin production. But it is Myanmar’s meth production and trafficking that has skyrocketed to “alarming levels” in recent years, […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesian authorities early Tuesday seized 1.6 tons of crystal methamphetamine hidden on a Singapore-flagged ship in their second major drug bust this month, officials said. Customs inspectors said they spotted the vessel between Indonesia’s Sumatra island and Singapore and reported it to police. A subsequent search of the ship turned up the huge haul of narcotics stuffed into some 81 rice sacks. Four Taiwanese crew were arrested including a 69-year-old man. […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A 27-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast has been arrested on the Thai island of Phuket after an airport X-ray found more than one kilogram of cocaine in her stomach wrapped in scores of small packets. The woman was stopped by officials late Wednesday night at Phuket’s international airport after landing on a flight from Doha. An X-ray revealed more than 60 small packages in her stomach, filled with 1.2 […]
