Four drug smugglers have been arrested and 1.4 tonnes of heroin smuggled across the Mekong River seized from a house and a rubber plantation in Sangkhom district of Nong Khai province.
Local officers from the Na Ngiew police station and border patrol police were dispatched to Phukhao Thong village in tambon Ban Muang on Wednesday night after an investigation revealed that a large quantity of smuggled drugs were being kept at a house in Sangkhom district of the northeastern province bordering Laos.
When police arrived, they found four men carrying cardboard boxes into the house. The officers found that the 20 cardboard boxes contained heroin, said Pol Lt Gen Sarayut Sanguanphokhai, commissioner of Provincial Police Region 4.
The four men identified as Niyom, 54, Sarawut, 39, Prasit, 53, and Pratho, 48, were arrested on the spot, said Pol Lt Gen Sarayut. He did not give their surnames.
During questioning, the suspects admitted there was more heroin hidden in a nearby rubber plantation. Officers went there and searched a makeshift shelter, finding nine more cardboard boxes.
A total of 208 packages, containing 1,404 kilogrammes of heroin, were seized from the 29 boxes, said Pol Lt Gen Sarayut.
The suspects said some Lao nationals onboard a motorboat had delivered the heroin to the Mekong river bank at Phukhao Thong village. The Thai men then took the drugs to the house pending delivery.
All were charged with the smuggling of Category 1 drugs (heroin) into the country and illegal possession of drugs. They were handed over to the Na Ngiew police station for legal action.
Plainclothes police search a makeshift shelter at a rubber plantation in Sangkhom district of Nong Khai and find nine more cardboard boxes containing heroin following the seizure of 20 boxes containing heroin from a house. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)
Four men (faces obscured in police photo) are taken into custody at the house in Sangkhom district of Nong Khai. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)