Police arrested a couple and seized 270,000 methamphetamine tablets in Uttaradit on Saturday, said Pol Maj Gen Pichet Wattanaluck, chief of the provincial police.
He said officers had received a tip that there would be an attempt to smuggle a large amount of illegal drugs from Chiang Rai to Talad Thai in Bangkok through Thong Saen Khan district in Uttaradit. Police subsequently set up a checkpoint on the Nam Ang-Nam Pee road at Ban Pa Kai.
Officers spotted a white Honda City sedan, with the Chiang Rai licence plate KN 6334, as they had been alerted, and signalled it to stop.
While police were searching the sedan, two men in a pickup truck that had been following the Honda parked their vehicle and fled into the roadside forest.
Police searched the pickup, with the Bangkok plate TY 3764, and found 270,000 methamphetamine pills hidden inside.
Praset Dansingcharassri, the driver of the sedan, told police that he had been paid 50,000 to drive ahead of the pickup truck to Bangkok. He had asked his girlfriend, Thasnita Chaiviriyanuluck, to accompany him.
Police were hunting for the two escaped drug trafficking suspects.