A police officer attached to a special operations unit was been arrested and 200,000 speed pills, with a street value of about 24 million baht, seized at Yala railway station on Sunday afternoon.
Pol Cpl Veerayut Changkaew, of the Yala police special operations unit, was detained as he arrived at Yala railway station at around 2.40 pm on Sunday to pick up a cardboard box containing illicit drugs.
The officer showed up shortly after a Bangkok-Yala special express train No 41 with the box on board arrived at the station, said Pol Lt Col Charnsarawut Saeng-arun, the Hat Yai railway police inspector who supervised the arrest.
The seized box contained 20 bundles of 200,000 speed pills with a street value of 24 million baht, police said.
A cardboard box used for containing illicit drugs is left on a train. (Photo by Assawin Pakkawan)
Pol Cpl Veerayut told police that a military ranger friend based in Narathiwat province had offered him 100,000 baht to collect the box from the train from Bangkok, but did not tell him what was inside. He only found out it contained illicit drugs when he was arrested while picking up it, the officer claimed.
Pol Lt Col Charnsarawut said a male passenger had carried the box onto the special expressway train at Bang Sue railway station in Bangkok. When the Yala-bound train arrived at Thung Song railway station in Nakhon Si Thammarat, the man got off the train, leaving the box on a seat in the second carriage of the train.
Hat Yai railway police and volunteers patrolling the train became suspicious when they saw the box was left unattended. On opening the box, labelled as containing a television, they discovered it was actually full of illicit drugs, said the Hat Yai railway police inspector.
The officers then kept a close watch on the box, waiting to see who would come to pick it up.
Pol Lt Col Charnsarawut said he would coordinate with concerned agencies to extend the investigation, believing the apparent involvement of the arrested police officer and a soldier working in the deep South suggested it was the work of a major drug smuggling gang.
Pol Col Kritsana Pattanacharoen, deputy spokesman to the Royal Thai Police Office, said on Monday that Pol Cpl Veerayut has been charged with possession of illicit drugs with intent to sell.
Yala police authorities have set up a committee to look into serious disciplinary violations by the officer, who was dismissed from the force pending the probe, said the deputy police spokesman.
A fact-finding panel was also set up to investigate Pol Cpl Veerayut's superiors for negligence in their duty.
Police display packs of illicit drugs seized when a Yala-based police officer picked up a cardboard box from a Bangkok-Yala special express train, at Yala railway station late Monday night. (Photo by Assawin Pakkawan)