Close cooperation between Thailand and Malaysia authorities was behind the recent success in cracking down on two major drug factories in Penang, Malaysia, whose products were partly destined for the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.
News of the crackdown may not be well-known in Thailand, but it has drawn the interest of anti-drug agencies around the globe.
Between last Tuesday night and the early hours of Wednesday, the Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department (NCID) of Malaysia raided two drug factories in Penang and arrested two men and a woman -- all Malaysian-Chinese -- at the scene.
The raids result from a cooperative effort by the Narcotics Suppression Bureau (NSB), Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) (both from Thailand), the NCID, and Penang anti-drug police.
Seized from the factories included a party drug called Erimin 5, which is an intermediate-acting hypnotic drug, similar to "Five Five", previously a hit among Thai teens.
It can be taken orally in tablet form or by inhaling its smoke.
The raids uncovered 742.6 kilogrammes of Erimin 5, 27.3kg of crystal meth or ya ice, 5,080 ecstasy tablets and 53.7kg of chemicals used to produce drugs as well as Erimin 5 manufacturing equipment at the facilities. The seized drugs were worth 72.5 million ringgit (about 573 million baht).
Authorities also seized 1.1 million ringgit worth of assets linked with the suspects, including bank accounts holding 426,000 ringgit, two luxury cars, 3,000 ringgit in cash, foreign banknotes worth 6,049 ringgit as well as luxury watches and gold ornaments.
Before the raids, Chinese and Thai authorities exchanged information about a major drug network which moved the drug shipment from Thailand to Malaysia. It was believed to be financed by Lee Wooi Keong from Hong Kong, according to police sources.
The information was then shared with Malaysian authorities, which later apprehended Mr Lee after he crossed to Malaysia from the South of Thailand.
His alleged accomplices -- Tan Sook Shwen and Yooh Shi Jie -- were caught in Bangkok, though police sources refused to say when they were apprehended.
The arrests of the trio allowed police to expand their probe, which subsequently led to the seizure of a Mercedes Benz with a Malaysian licence plate believed to have been used to transport drugs from Hat Yai district of Songkhla to Malaysia via a border area in Ban Changlon of Songkhla's Sadao district, the sources said.
The vehicle has crossed to Malaysia eight times through what was believed to be a secret crossing point between Sadao and Padang Besar of Malaysia, sources said.
A Thai man, named Ko Chianghuad, and a Malaysian man who has a Thai wife in Ban Changlon were believed to have been associated with the drug ring, the sources added.
NSB chief Pol Lt Gen Sommai Kongvisaisuk told the Bangkok Post the drug network has been embedded in Penang for a long time with a Taiwanese scientist cooking up drugs and a Malaysian-Chinese running the factories.
At the factories, machinery was used to produce Erimin 5 in red packages, 10 pills each, Pol Lt Gen Sommai said, adding each package was then sold for 100 ringgit.
Erimin 5, he said, is in the methamphetamine group but it is purer than methamphetamine tablets or ya ba.
Sommai Kongvisaisuk, NSB chief: 'Officers gave leads to Malaysia since we were aware that a huge amount of drugs had been shifted.'
The drug has been smuggled to the Philippines and Indonesia in bulk, he said, adding some of them were sold in Malaysia as well as shifted to Australia.
"Narcotics suppression officers gave leads to Malaysia since we were aware that a huge amount of drugs and their precursors had been shifted from the North (of Thailand) to the southern border (of Thailand)," Pol Lt Gen Sommai said.
He said the investigation found that the drugs were handled by a narcotics network based in Penang and the result of the probe, which lasted more than three months, was then shared to Malaysian authorities.
Thai and Malaysian authorities also held a meeting about the issue in Bangkok and they came to understand that this was the work of the "14K" gang headed by a Malaysian-Chinese, according to the NSB chief.