33 mil speed pills seized near notorious Kings Romans Casino
Police in Laos have made their third-biggest solitary seizure of unlawful drugs by coming up 33 million methamphetamine pills, an United Nations official said upon Saturday.
In recent years Laos has turned into a gateway for traffickers moving meth out of Myanmar’s Shan condition across the Mekong Water into Thailand in an effort to circumvent Thai patrols.
Laos is part of the Golden Triangle that has for many years been a centre for Southeast Asia’s lucrative drug business.
The seizure of 33 million methamphetamine capsules and 500 kilogrammes of ice happened on Friday in the northern province associated with Bokeo near the well known Kings Romans Casino , said Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the particular UN Office on Medications and Crime .
The location is near the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone that analysts say is a hotbed intended for sex and animals trafficking as well as the drug trade.
Friday’s seizure stemmed from information garnered following a smaller catch of 200, 1000 meth tablets in a district checkpoint in Ton Pheung region the same day, Douglas said.
The massive delivery was not a surprise, this individual added.
“Bokeo has been certainly flooded with drugs the past year and a half, ” Douglas told AFP.
He said drug labs in Shan state were operating overtime to pump out supply, while “northern Laos is now the frontline for the area as traffickers continue to keep re-route around Thailänder forces”.
“We’re increasingly concerned about security in Bokeo and neighbouring provinces, and the sense will be major organised crime and traffickers more or less do what they want in the area. ”
Photos seen simply by AFP show eco-friendly bags of the grabbed drugs stacked along with each other. Lao police have made one arrest.
Myanmar has been in chaos and it is economy crippled since a military coup in February last year, but synthetic drug production was already flourishing before the coup.
Last Oct, Laos police made the biggest seizure ever of drugs in Asia by coming up 55 million meth pills, while another raid in January this year uncovered thirty six million tablets. Both took place in Bokeo province.
A record one billion dollars meth pills were seized across East and Southeast Asian countries in 2021, according to an United Nations report in May this year.