BANGKOK (AP) – Authorities in Laos have made the third largest seizure of methamphetamine ever, confiscating 33 million methamphetamine tablets and 500 kilograms (1,100 kilograms), an official with the United Nations anti-crime agency said Saturday. lbs) crystal methamphetamine.
Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC regional representative, said 200,000 pills were found in a truck on Friday night when it was stopped at a checkpoint in the northwestern province of Bojo , causing a huge depression. The operation exposed a trafficking ring and its schemes, resulting in much larger seizures following the interrogation of drivers.
Douglas noted that the truck was parked near King Rome Casino, a special economic zone in Laos that operates almost autonomously under national law. Such areas are located in neighbouring countries such as Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, which have lax law enforcement and struggle with organised crime.
The largest drug seizure in Laos – and one of the largest in Asia – was last October, when police in the province seized more than 55.6 million methamphetamine pills and about 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) in a raid Meth, according to Lao media reports.
The country’s second-largest seizure of 36.5 million methamphetamine pills occurred in January, also in Bojo.
The production and trafficking of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine is booming in the region, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in a May report. It said the number of methamphetamine pills seized in East and Southeast Asia last year exceeded one billion for the first time.
The 1.008 billion pills were seven times the amount seized 10 years ago, the agency said, and warned that increased production would make the drug cheaper and more accessible, posing a greater risk to people and their communities.
Methamphetamine, which is easy to manufacture, has replaced opium and its derivative heroin as the main illicit drug used and exported in Southeast Asia.
The Golden Triangle region, where Myanmar, a major producer of methamphetamine, borders Laos and Thailand, has historically been a major opium-producing area and has many laboratories that convert opium into heroin.
Decades of political unrest have left Myanmar’s border areas largely lawless and exploited by drug producers and traffickers. Bokeo borders Myanmar and Thailand, and the Mekong River runs through it, making it a crossroads for the drug trade.