NAKHON PHANOM: Border patrol police seized 556,000 methamphetamine pills and 138 kilogrammes of compressed marijuana in That Phanom district early on Tuesday morning.
Acting on a tip-off, a unit from Border Patrol Police Company 235 intercepted a pickup on a road near Ban Khap Phuang in That Phanom district near the Mekong river.
As the truck was forced to a halt, four or five men fled from it. They left behind three fertiliser sacks containing 556,000 meth pills in total, and four other sacks with 138 slabs of dried marijuana, weighing 1kg each.
Pol Lt Gen Supat Muangsamai, commissioner of the Border Patrol Police Region 2, told reporters on Wednesday the meth pills were believed to have been delivered from Myanmar to Laos, and then smuggled by boat across the Mekong river into the Northeast of Thailand.
He said the detour was necessary because the border with Myanmar in the North had been sealed to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
During the past month alone, more than 6 million meth pills and 3 tonnes of marijuana were seized in Nakhon Phanom, he said.
The street value of the meth pills was 100 baht each and the marijuana 5,000-10,000 baht/kg in the border area, he said.