Police seized more than 400,000 methamphetamine tablets and arrested 172 people in a week-long crime sweep in two northern border provinces.
Pol Lt Gen Thanitsak Teerasawat, chief of Provincial Police Region 5, on Wednesday announced the arrests and seizure of 447,262 speed pills, along with the confiscation of about 100 million baht in assets allegedly bought with drug money in Chiang Rai and Phayao between Feb 5 and 11.
During the operations, teams of narcotics-suppression officers raided 160 locations in the two provinces, he said.
The assets were seized from 10 drug members of a drug-trafficking network allegedly headed by Koijiew Ngern-on, who was earlier arrested, said Pol Lt Gen Thanitsak. Most of the confiscated property consisted of land in Chiang Rai.
The operations followed investigations that drug traffickers would smuggle illicit narcotics into Chiang Rai along the Mekong River. The drugs would later be delivered to dealers in other districts in Chiang Rai and Phayao, said the Provincial Police Region 5 chief. Hmong tribal people had been hired to smuggle the drugs, he added.