The Justice Ministry has set up a new centre to seize drug-related assets as part of an effort to stamp out drug syndicates.
Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin was speaking as he laid out policy plans for the new centre at the Office of the Narcotics Control Board.
Mr Somsak, who chairs the national drug prevention and suppression centre, said the amount of assets seized from drug traffickers are very small -- only about 400-500 million baht a year -- compared to the huge amount raked in from drugs sold.
The new centre will help step up efforts to track down and seize more assets from both small and major drug traffickers, the minister said.
He said drug networks have set up facilities along borders with neighbouring countries to produce drugs worth US$60 billion, or about 1.9 billion baht annually.
Mr Somsak also said the traffickers have shifted to online platforms to sell drugs, but that the authorities were also well-equipped to track them and seize their money.
Meanwhile, a combined force of military rangers and police arrested a Lao smuggler and seized a total of 1,915 methamphetamine pill from her in Nakhon Phanom's Tha Uthen district on Thursday night.
The 46-year-old woman, identified as Jung Mala, smuggled the drugs on a boat across the Mekong River to the Thai side to deliver them to a Thai drug gangs, police said.