Police have seized more than 1.6 million methamphetamine pills - believed to have been produced in the same lot as those seized earlier from former drug buster cop Pol Lt Col Chamnan Poompaijit - in Bung Kan district and arrested two suspects.
The huge drug seizure was announced in a press conference on Sunday at the Royal Thai Police Office by deputy police chiefs Pol Gen Somyot Phumphanmuang and Pol Gen Pongsapat Pongcharoen and other police officers concerned.
Pol Gen Pongsapat said the success followed the seizure of 508kg of compressed marijuana by border patrol police in Bung Kan province on July 10 when two suspects were also arrested.
It was learned from the investigation of the two suspects that their gang had been involved with a major drug network believed planning to smuggle a huge quantity of methamphetamines into the country from Laos.
A sting operation was subsequently launched in which three suspects were arrested on a road in Bung Khong Long district of Bung Kan province with 1,646,000 methamphetamine pills they had smuggled from Laos.
The three suspects, who had been kept as witnesses, told police that this huge lot of amphetamines were intended to be further delivered to the South. They said the drugs were to be delivered to two men in the Central Region.
An appointment was then made for the three to hand over the drugs to the two. This led to the arrest of Sunthorn Sawangpheng, 32, and Suchit Noodam 54, at a petrol station on Vibhavadi Rangsit road in Wang Noi district of Ayutthaya province on Aug 22.
Pol Gen Pongsapat said the methamphetamine pills seized were found to have been produced in the same lot with the 800,000 speed pills seized from Pol Lt Col Camnan Poompaijit, a former officer of Chai Prakan police station in Chiang Mai, who was reputed to be a drug buster.
Pol Gen Somyot, the police chief-designate, said the Pol Lt Col Chamnan case showed that the drugs have a great power to lure officers reputed for their drug suppression records to waver and become greedy for money.