Drug suspect injured after trying to reclaim meth from police

AYUTTHAYA: A suspected drug dealer was severely injured from a bullet wound when he and his accomplice followed police after losing their methamphetamine pills in a sting operation in Phak Hai district on Wednesday night.

Plain-clothes officers of the Provincial Police Region 1 conducted a sting operation to buy 20,000 speed pills from a suspected drug trafficker identified only as Toey at about 8pm on Wednesday. Toey, 45, was earlier freed from jail after serving his term for drug trafficking.

After the suspect and an accomplice on a pickup truck and a passenger car showed up at a meeting point on a local road in tambon Lad Chado, they realised it was a sting and started opening fire at the officers with a pistol and a shotgun.

Both sides exchanged gunfire. The suspects ran into a paddy field and left their meth pills and vehicles. Police then took the vehicles and the drug to Lad Chao station, which was four kilometres from the shooting scene.

Shortly afterwards they sneaked into the entrance of the station. Patrol police spotted both men and approached them for a search, but the duo opened fire.

After the second round of shooting, Toey was severely injured and could not escape, but his accomplice fled the scene.

Police would expand investigation into this drug dealers' network, which covered many traffickers and often resorted to violence, Pol Maj Gen Chayanon Meesati, commander of Ayutthaya police, said on Thursday.